Fossil Ridge High School wins design award

Fossil Ridge High School has been awarded the Walter Taylor Award by the American Association of School Administrators, the American Institute of Architects and the Council of Educational Facility Planners for excellence in meeting difficult challenges in educational building design.

RB & B Architects Inc. and Superintendent of Schools Jerry Wilson accepted the award for the district at the National Conference on Education on Feb. 23 in San Diego.

The winning design fulfilled rigorous educational and physical requirements developed by RB & B Architects in collaboration with a nine-member design advisory group and a 36-member education committee.

The design breaks the 300,000-square-foot facility--intended to accommodate 1,800 students--into smaller, more personalized learning communities. The resulting school-within-a-school concept lays the building out into three distinct learning communities, each equipped with its own administrative, counseling and teacher offices.

The Fossil Ridge design also allows the facility to be shared with the community after hours. The school's commons area can be closed off from or opened to the athletics area or the performing arts area, fulfilling the requirement that the school be able to host three major events simultaneously.

Sustainability practices also are incorporated throughout the building. These include aggressive water and energy conservation with ample use of renewable energy resources. The school's east-west alignment, for example, maximizes available natural light, eliminating or greatly reducing the need for electric lights and the extra cooling to offset the heat they produce. The goal is to reduce energy costs to half those of the last high school built by Poudre School District.

PSD's sustainability efforts have earned Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification for Fossil Ridge. LEED is a voluntary, consensus-based national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings. The certification is granted by the U. S. Green Building Council, a national coalition working to promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy.

Fossil Ridge High School is named for the low rise in front of the foothills and attests to the rich collection of fossils found in the Fossil Creek area. The high school opened in August 2004.