The Growing Room
The New School
Cincinnati, Ohio, 1996

The Growing Room is a 4000 S.F. addition to an historic mansion, which houses a unique and highly respected Montessori School. The school places a strong emphasis on community, and thus desired that the process of creating the addition engage the school’s community of students, teachers and parents, but also the larger community of the surrounding neighborhood. The addition was designed to respect the scale and character of the surrounding residential area.

The entire New School community participated in the planning, funding, and even in the construction of many aspects of the project. In the Montessori “hands-on” tradition, a cut and fold model of the addition was distributed to the entire school, complete with an original cartoon by a parent cartoonist. The design evolved into a tree house like setting in which surroundings formed the exterior spatial enclosure. The large space has allowed the school to have performances, gatherings, lessons, and lunches.

» Montessori Life Magazine, Summer 1998