Owner: Greenwich Country Day School
Owner’s Representative: Collier’s International
Lead Design Firm: ARC/Architectural Resources Cambridge Inc.
General Contractor: Turner Construction Co.
Civil Engineer: Rocco V. D’Andrea Inc.
Structural Engineer: DiBlasi Associates PC
MEP Engineer: Van Zelm Engineers
Landscape Designer: Activitas Inc.
Subcontractors: Sound Beach Services Inc. dba White Construction (Sitework); Tri-Star Building Corp. (Concrete); Conn Acoustics Inc. (Ceilings); M. Frank Higgins & Co. (Flooring); Sarracco Mechanical Services Inc. (Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing)

To complete the $24-million Greenwich Country Day Middle School project in 15 months—on time and on budget—the team had to get creative. It built foundation and exterior walls with advanced insulated concrete form construction (ICF), a technique involving cast-in-place concrete walls sandwiched between two layers of insulation material. The interlocking Styrofoam molds—each about 3 ft long, 16 in. wide and 18 in. high—are dry-stacked, fortified with rebar and filled with concrete. “This was the first commercial building that we’re aware of in Connecticut, certainly the first school, using ICF construction,” says Ty Tregellas, project executive at Turner Construction.

Unable to find a subcontractor with the financial strength and expertise to perform ICF in the Connecticut market, Tregellas says the team hired a joint venture of subcontractors from New Jersey and Pennsylvania and “married” them with Connecticut contractor Tri-Star. He adds, “It was very much a hybrid situation.”

For energy efficiency, the 52,000-sq-ft project includes several high-performance materials and systems, such as high-efficiency mechanical systems. The project’s reuse of the campus’ original 1890s house also reduced the amount of material destined for landfill. Building within the existing middle school’s footprint also reduced site costs. Jan Taylor, principal at lead design firm ARC, says reusing the original house made for a “unique” project that demonstrated “the school’s desire to preserve its history.”

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