The Pennington School sought a plan to evaluate and reprogram the academic space on their historic campus which would also consider locations and appropriate sizes for potential new buildings.

Working closely with faculty and school leadership to analyze existing programming and scheduling, VMA identified four overlapping zones on campus – academic; social; fitness/arts; administrative – and offered a suite of options, at varying price points, to enable the school to choose the projects and construction priorities best suited to their institutional abilities.

To begin, we established which classrooms were adequate for their needs and which could not be adapted to contemporary standards. We determined that classrooms of varying size and type were likely best suited to Pennington’s preferred pedagogical model, as opposed to a “one size fits all” approach. This ultimately led the school’s transition to flexible scheduling from more traditional single-purpose room scheduling. 

Two updates to the plan following its approval re-aligned development priorities based on feedback from the early stages. These updates expanded the scope of the plan to include additional work in back-filled buildings and a complete assessment of faculty and student housing needs. The latter includes creation of an on-campus “faculty village” and restructuring each student dormitory to create a mix of faculty types overseeing each group of students, creating a family-style model of dorm parenting. The school has noted a marked increase in their admission pipeline directly attributable to new campus improvements.