Westhill CSD High School Featured by Retrofit Magazine as a Model for Midcentury School Buildings

Retrofit Magazine featured Westhill Central School District’s High School renovation in the article “Architectural Design Drives Instructional Conversation.”

In the U.S., there are approximately 98,000 K-12 schools. The average age of the buildings is 44 years old, and 30 percent were built before 1960. These schools consume 8 percent of all commercial building energy use in the country, and spend more than $8 billion on energy costs. As a result, this slice of the academic sector provides an opportunity for retrofitting.

Westhill CSD Superintendent Casey Barduhn and the Ashley McGraw design team saw an opportunity not only to replace failing building systems, but to rethink how this project could drive instructional conversation through architectural design.