Taft Freshman Academy / STL Architects

The new Taft Freshman Academy is bound by the rich and complex history of the site as well as by the programmatic and functional aspirations of the Chicago Public Schools. The 150,000 SF masonry-clad school for 1,350 students includes twenty-two classrooms, science labs, computer labs, art, and music suites, a gymnasium/auditorium, as well as various health and fitness-related rooms. The school has been programmatically conceived with two distinct wings in mind which interact volumetrically to give the building its unique character. The east wing holds the common elements of the program such as the gymnasium/auditorium and cafeteria, and the west wing hosts all of the academic functions and required support and administrative spaces.