LOCATION: Samuel Gompers High School, Bronx, NY

PROGRAM: SCHOOL-BASED HEALTHCARE FACILITY

STATUS: PRESENTED 2013

The Montefiore School Health Program provides school-based health services inside public elementary, middle, and high schools in the Bronx and Westchester County. They asked Glickman Schlesinger Architects to work with them to provide a vision for a free-standing building that would integrate those services with outdoor community amenities in underutilized school yards. This was a prototype sited at the Samuel Gompers High School Campus in the Bronx. The site was chosen because it was central to an area in which students’ health needs were not being met, and because the school possessed a paved playground space that was being used for teacher parking. It was considered a test-case for similar sites at schools throughout the borough. In place of broken asphalt and 12-foot-tall, chain-link fences, we designed a free-standing community health facility along with a community garden with growing plots, basketball courts, playgrounds, tree planting, and a dedicated space for a farmers’ market. The plan provided shade, recreational space, and storm-water management in place of what is currently an underused urban heat island.