HMFH Architects
Brewster Elementary
School
While there is great spatial and educational flexibility, there is also great care that the architecture is neither doctrinaire nor neutral to the point of blandness.
The original Brewster Elementary School designed by HMFH in 1976 accommodated 450 students with core facilities for 600. The firm was later commissioned for a 20,000 sf addition to include classrooms, a multi-purpose area, and expanded maintenance and administrative areas. The original school building received the 1976 Walter Taylor Award for excellence in school design from the American Association of School Administrators. The addition received a citation from American School & University and was selected for exhibition in the 1990 AASA Exhibition of School Architecture.
Located in the heart of Cape Cod’s Old King’s Highway Historic District, the design is a contemporary reflection of the region’s architectural heritage, in scale with both its young occupants and its immediate surroundings. The overall concept is one of spatial and educational flexibility that encourages the feeling that the whole school is the classroom.
Brewster is flooded with gentle light that seems to be everywhere with never too much, modeling forms softly, with few shadows, showing off the transparent steel structure.
