ENR 2023 New England Best Projects
AOM K-12 Education: Maria Weston Chapman Middle School
Photo by Ed Wosnek, courtesy Hill International Inc.
Maria Weston Chapman Middle School
Weymouth, Mass.
Award of Merit
Submitted by: Hill International Inc.
Owner: Town of Weymouth
Lead Design Firm: HMFH Architects Inc.
General Contractor: Bond Building
Civil Engineer: Samiotes Consultants
Structural Engineer: Foley Buhl Roberts Inc.
MEP Engineer: DeSousa Consulting Engineers Inc.
Owner's Representative: Hill International Inc.
Delivering this large 252,170-sq-ft middle school—a building with three academic wings that surrounds a central area of lab space— took careful planning and risk mitigation efforts.
The building supports 1,400 students in grades 6 through 8. The school includes a unique “town square” concept with central gathering space and dining area, which integrates with the existing gymnasium to serve both students and the public.
The innovative design of the 840-seat performance theater included a 90-ft radiused structural beam to support an upper balcony over lower-level seating.
The project team carefully planned for this beam’s fabrication and delivery to the site for the $130-million project that took 25 months to deliver. Temporary shoring was required to install the beam and perform additional work.
Careful management of the
contract and the risks associated with the span of the project enabled the team to deliver it under budget. Employing an alternative approach for managing abatement and demolition of the existing building helped save the owner several hundred thousand dollars.
The team identified an abatement method that involved a cost-saving dustless vapor blasting system that employed crushed recycled glass to remove asbestos coating while leaving clean substrate material for recycling.
