Appoquinimink Looks at Unique School Design

By Melissa Tyrrell / The News Journal
December 20, 2004

Architects showed off the newest plans Tuesday for a two-story Georgian-style brick and mortar home in Middletown – a home for about 1,600 Appoquinimink high school students.

School board members reviewed preliminary designs for the new school, which voters approved in a sweeping $88 million referendum last year. About $38 million was included for a high school.

The new school will look like a building plucked from the University of Delaware’s Mall, with keystone ornaments, white pillars and gabled roofs.

Inside, there will be 200,000 square feet of space for 50 classrooms. The auditorium, gymnasium and media center are each two stories, said Bob Hershey, the district’s building supervisor.

While designing the new school – the district’s second high school – administrators decided to retool the options for the oldest students.

“We don’t want to just fit into a building,” said Superintendent Tony Marchio. “We want it to suit our students’ needs.”

With the new school and freed space in the old one, administrators decided they could better develop their vocational offerings, giving more students a chance to explore information technology, agriscience, construction and family and consumer sciences.

They plan to create a culinary arts academy at the new building while starting an agriculture academy at Middletown High School, Marchio said.

The new building will feature a professional kitchen and cafe where students actually serve their teachers lunch each day.

Designs by Buck Simpers Architects & Associates showed that the cafe and many other elective and vocational classrooms will revolve around a courtyard in the center of the building, creating a small-town atmosphere on the first floor.

The school store, audio-visual classes, banking classes and sewing classes would all face the courtyard, with signs and lights in the hall casting a sidewalk ambience.

Contact Melissa Tyrrell at 302-324-2890 or mtyrrell@delawareonline.com.