The classrooms at the Academy are furnished with a custom designed conference table shared by students and teachers.  This setting is intended to give each student the clear message that he or she is a full participant in the process of learning at the Academy and not just the recipient of information passing from teacher to pupil.  Alongside traditional chalkboards are found state-of-the-art SmartBoards that provide the teachers with the tools to teach via computer using the Internet or accessing the electronic resources of the campus or of sites throughout the world.

Each main Classroom Building (two of the three planned have been constructed) are two stories of approximately 34,000 sqft. total.  Their form is elongated and ship-like.  They are positioned at 60 degree angles to the next, radiating outward like spokes from a central academic plaza.  At each interior, a central “mall-type” circulation corridor links the classrooms and is generously widened to attract socialization.  The corridor is filled with natural daylight from a continuous translucent skylight overhead.  Built-in benches with planter boxes alongside are provided for the students.  These surround glazed lightwells which extend natural light further to the ground level below.  In each classroom, natural daylighting is provided by a continuous exterior band of windows at one side and balanced from above by a band of clerestory glazing communicating with the skylight at the circulation corridor.

The Phase One Classroom Building was constructed with a large Biology Laboratory and Greenhouse at its outermost terminus; the Phase Two has a Weather Laboratory in the same position; the final building will have an Observatory.

Aaron G. Green Associates, Inc.
5 Third Street Suite 224
San Francisco, CA 94103
415 777.0530 voice
415 777.1014 fax
admin@agaarchitects.com

Classroom Buildings
American Hebrew Academy
Greensboro, NC