New Brookline School among the most futuristic in state

(from the Boston Globe, January 1974)

By Phyllis Coons
Globe Staff 

One of the most unusual-looking school in the state will be open in Brookline on Jan 7.

The Pierce Elementary School, with a four-story resource center as its chief innovation, will admit students to its open classrooms on a staggered schedule until 675 are attending by the end of the week.

The $6 million school is about as different from the one room red schoolhouse as modern architecture can make it. Classroom without walls make up most of the 100,000 square foot area. The dramatic series of three linked clusters forms a triangle near the intersection of Harvard and School Streets. It
steers a zig zag course of red brick walls set on 90 degree angles to avoided a warehouse look.

On the inside, there are two traditional fourwalled classrooms. All of the other learning areas are open space, with freestanding cabinets and movable furniture to give teachers a chance to accommodate small of large groups of students.

The architects (Davies and Woolf of Cambridge and William D. Warner of Providence) have shown great initiative, says Elton B. Smith, assistant administrator of the state's School Building Assistance Bureau. Plans allow for sophisticated teaching, especially in special areas like arts and science.

Teachers will have signal panels for intercommunication instead of home rooms. Students will report to free-standing lockers in the morning. They will write at desks and tables of adjustable height made of white plastic on stainless steel frames which slide like sleds across the carpeted floors. They will read,
sitting on pillows or benches topped by railings which like the lockers serve to divide rooms.

Rooms shaped like spheres or angles run off the central resource area.

The main cluster on the Harvard Street side houses classrooms, offices and the resource center which covers all four stories.

A second cluster on school street houses a main gym flanked by an auditorium, music rooms and cafeteria.

The third cluster facing Pierce Street is for grades one and two and faces the present kindergarten building which will be demolished when construction of the fourth cluster starts,

Outdoor classes and recess can be scheduled on an open deck at the second floor level. A walkthrough beneath this connects Pierce and School streets.

The school is full of wide open spaces. One exception: home-sized bathrooms in each open stairwell are small, have walls and doors.