Designing our Unified Campus

As we conclude our three-year “Unification Trilogy,” the focus of our work is expanding from Early and Lower School projects to all-school ones. Call it the “unification ripple effect.”

I’m therefore excited to share updates about the first of our school-wide goals for the year: design our unified campus.

1. Design our unified campus, including a greenspace at its center, an Upper/Middle fitness center, a mission-centered school-day schedule, an elevated dining program, and more.

We remain on schedule with our various building projects. As you may remember, last spring we cut the ribbon for our expanded Early School. It’s a great home for our youngest learners, and I’m thrilled with how seamlessly the original and new sections of the building flow together.

Over the past few weeks, the construction team has erected the steel superstructure of our new Doherty Lotspeich Lower School. As the building goes vertical, you can really see its shape and scale and how well it connects to the rest of the campus. See the construction timelapse on our One Seven Hills campaign page.

Because of the sustainable choices we made in its design and construction, the building will earn LEED Certification, a first for Seven Hills. And by building out of steel, brick, and other durable materials, we will have a Lower School that will last for generations.

New Greenspace on Campus

Where Lotspeich and the old Briggs office building stand today will be an inviting green space at the heart of our campus. What might this “Hillsdale Park” mean for outdoor classes, for recess and free play, for gathering our community, for welcoming visitors, or for growing farm-to-plate vegetables? We’ll preserve the existing trees and spaces such as Carolyn’s Garden and will add new plantings, including some of the Doherty oaks.

Unlike a building, which is more or less complete when it opens, a green space can grow and change each year. I see us going from an initial open space to one that feels increasingly park-like, with different zones for different purposes.

We’ve been gathering feedback from various groups of students this year to contribute to the design of this greenspace. I’ve started with the Middle Schoolers, who will make great use of this area during lunch and at other times of the day.

Every Middle Schooler shared their ideas during an advisory session, and a lively and thoughtful group of students have opted into my new lunch club to keep designing the space. We’ll engage Upper, Lower, and Early Schoolers in the process next.

Founders Hall Kitchen Renovation

Last summer, we expanded Founders Hall’s kitchen, storage, and food service areas. Our new Dining Director Martina Meredith has leveraged these resources and the strengths of our culinary team to elevate our dining program. Our team is preparing food from scratch, trading packaged and processed offerings in favor of fresh ones, and offering popular features such as a rotating build-your-own bar.

We are also modeling sustainable practices by building on our composting program and introducing reusable trays, plates, and glasses rather than disposable ones. A big thanks to Martina and our culinary team for their work this summer and for everything that they are doing to set up the new space and to literally nourish and sustain our community.

We’ll carry these practices over to our new Doherty Lotspeich kitchen and dining hall. With two dining halls in play, various existing spaces offer themselves up for reconsideration. Founders Hall, for example, will become a dedicated space for Middle and Upper Schoolers, with ready access to outdoor seating on the new green space.

New Athletic Facility

We’ll transform the Hillsdale commons, which has been used for spillover lunchtime seating for Upper, into a new athletic facility. The space will be used by Middle and Upper Schoolers, appealing both to committed student-athletes and to students who are just beginning to incorporate fitness into their lifestyle.

With its gabled ceiling and tall windows, the commons will offer a bright and inviting space that appeals to pre-teens and teens, so that fitness and health feel like a natural part of the day. Thank you to Brandon Williams and his team for engaging Upper and Middle Schoolers in contributing to this design.

Reconstructed Deck

The commons will open onto a reconstructed deck, always a popular gathering spot for Upper Schoolers. Thanks to our maintenance team, who initially went to replace a loose board and ultimately determined (by crawling underneath it with flashlights and cameras!) that the whole structure should be replaced. I’m looking forward to Upper Schoolers inaugurating the new deck in the spring.

The unification ripple effect is not just about space but about time itself. In the past, the schedules for all divisions have been built around lunch, driven by the paramount need to get every student through the line and fed. With Lower Schoolers enjoying their own dining hall, Middle and Upper will be free in 2027 to build schedules around student-centered and mission-centered priorities. We have assembled a powerhouse scheduling design team of teachers and administrators who are working hard on this important project.

“Empathy interviewing” is a big part of their discovery process: they have interviewed parents, students, and teachers about their schedules and have shadowed students’ schedules, walking in their shoes and experiencing the benefits and the pinch points of our current schedule. I’m appreciative of all of the team’s work and am eager to see their prototypes.

If you’d like to learn more about any or all of these developments, we have just the event for you. Come to January’s “Wonder and Connection,” an annual parent gathering centered on workshopping and discussing the school’s various plans and developments. It’s an exciting opportunity for us to work together to conceptualize and build Seven Hills’ unified campus, community, and culture.