All content VCBO Architecture 2018 ©
Butler Middle School
Canyons School District
Cottonwood Heights, Utah
The new Butler Middle School is designed around the concept of integrated curriculum, collaborative learning and teaching. The 177,000 square foot building will be divided into smaller populations by utilizing small learning centers or education communities. The education communities are comprised of science classrooms/labs, project classrooms and teacher offices.
The key to the design solution is the arrangement of the classrooms into three separate, grade-level specific academic learning centers, each surrounding and connected to a lively central collaboration space. A fourth academic house contains arts, computer science, shops and FCS classrooms. These academic houses provide a highly flexible, open, and extremely visible environments for group collaboration, which foster critical student/student and student/teacher relationships. Each house also contains planning offices, separate student and faculty toilet rooms, and grade-specific lockers, promoting a cohesive environment in which students may live and learn.