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Construction Phase

Town Meeting, and some big “Thank you’s”!

ANNUAL TOWN MEETING! Saturday, March 25, 2023 in the Lincoln School. Check-in begins at 8:30am, Meeting begins promptly at 9:30am! Learn more here!

Thank you, FoMA and the Project Team! At the Lincoln School ribbon cutting ceremony in October, the Friends of Modern Architecture (FoMA) announced that it was awarding the project team (Architects SMMA & EwingCole, Consigli Construction, and Owner’s Project Manager, CHA) with its annual “Excellence in Modern Architecture” award. This past Thursday, FoMA president, Andrew Glass, and SMMA Project Architect, Jennifer Soucy, gave a presentation about the architectural history of the school and how the renovation built on the school’s Modern history while creating transformational educational spaces in a sustainable, net-zero building. The presentation was followed by a panel discussion featuring Chris Fasciano, SBC Chair; Kim Bodnar, SBC Vice-Chair; Buck Creel, Administrator for Business & Finance/Project Manager; and Jennifer Glass, SBC Member. The FoMA & SMMA slide decks are here, and the recording of the event will be posted soon!

Thank you, Sharon & Jennifer! At this week’s SBC meeting we gave heartfelt thanks to two departing committee members, Jennifer Glass and Sharon Hobbs. 

Sharon will be retiring as the Lincoln School Middle School Principal at the end of June and last week’s SBC meeting was her last. Sharon consistently provided the important voice of the students, faculty, and staff throughout the building project. She braved late night meetings, often with her young daughter in tow, as critical educational based building decisions were being discussed and debated. Over the past 15 years, she spoke about the need for a project at many parent meetings, and during construction she worked quietly behind the scenes to ensure smooth transitions to and from the temporary classrooms and into the new school facilities. We are so grateful to have had her expertise and calm leadership guiding us through the project, and we wish her the best in retirement!

Jennifer, a member of the Select Board, is stepping off the SBC to avoid violating Open Meeting Law when SBC Vice-Chair, Kim Bodnar, joins the Select Board later this month. Jennifer’s unwavering dedication to the School Building Project began nearly 15 years ago when she began her tenure on the School Committee, and continued through her work with the many committees that contributed to the successful completion of the school project. Jennifer’s commitment to engaging residents through an open and transparent process resulted in countless community discussions, charrettes, public meetings, presentations, and the dynamic SBC website. As a member of the Outreach sub-committee, Jennifer helped craft hundreds of engaging and informative blogs, informing residents about the building project at each step along the journey. Her SBC meeting minutes are legendary and capture every detail of discussion and decision. The words “Thank You” hardly seem adequate to express the level of appreciation we have for Jennifer’s leadership over the past 15 years but … thank you!

– Kim Bodnar & Gina Halsted, Outreach

The slides from last Wednesday’s SBC meeting can be found here. Next meeting is on Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 7:00pm.

Thursday: Friends of Modern Architecture Honors Lincoln School Project Team!

(And the School Building Committee meets on Wednesday! Agenda is here.)

Lincoln’s 200th anniversary was in 1954, and this comes from a calendar published by the Lincoln Bicentennial Committee. The photographer was Henry Bugbee Kane.

The Friends of Modern Architecture/Lincoln (FoMA) invites you to a presentation, panel discussion, and reception celebrating the revitalization of Lincoln’s Modern school. Lincoln Modern architects Lawrence B. Anderson and Henry B. Hoover, who designed the original school buildings beginning in the 1940s, saw the power of Modernism to reimagine how architecture could assist the school community to think and learn in new and inclusive ways. With the generous support of the Town, the School Building Committee and the project architects have again reimagined the transformative power of architecture. The project team has realized an ambitious, first-in-the-state net-zero renovation that centers on teachers and students while preserving Anderson’s and Hoover’s original design intent of creating close connections to nature and using natural light to create calm energy throughout the building.  

Please join FoMA in the Learning Commons at the revitalized Lincoln School for a lively evening of architecture, education, and sustainability on March 16, 2023, from 6:30-8:00pm. Or join remotely via Zoom webinar at https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82628178201 

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1994 – 1995 Time Capsules are on display in the Lincoln Public Library until Sunday, March 25th! Please stop by and see the 6th and 7th grade time capsules.

Community Spaces

One of the 5 core principles of the school building project was enhancing the school as a community space. We are in a different phase of Covid, the building is now in use, and the vision for its potential uses is expanding. In the past couple of weeks, families gathered in the Dining Commons for Bingo Night, and the town’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, & Anti-Racism Committee (IDEA) used the Learning Commons for a hybrid-format public forum. We’ve started to put together a photo gallery of the building in use – send photos to sbc@lincnet.org if you have a picture you can share of your group using the school. We look forward to hearing about new and creative uses!

During the Lincoln Winter Carnival, students and families enjoy Bingo Night in the Dining Commons.
The town's Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-Racism Committee held a hybrid format public forum in the Learning Commons and via Zoom.

Winding Down

At some point this year, we, the SBC Outreach team, will publish a final blog post! We are grateful to the 360+ subscribers to our site, and to many others who have read our posts over the past (almost) 6 years. As we wind down, we are aware that there are many other important topics of conversation in town, and we invite our followers to stay informed about what is going on in Lincoln by signing up for updates from other groups.

Meeting Notes

The SBC met last Wednesday. Click here for the slide presentation.

Blasts from the Past

The 3rd and 4th grade time capsules from the 1994 -1995 school project are now on display in the Lincoln Public Library! Stop by to see what students were thinking about at the time.

Also, remember this photo?

When the Auditorium was being renovated, quite a few artifacts were found in those hexagonal “clouds” in the ceiling. Some of the items are also on display at the Library.

For more time travel, check out the gallery of images documenting the 1994 mural, and see what was happening with the project in February 2022 and February 2021. Much has changed over the past few years!

The School Building Committee meets on Wednesday, February 15th at 7:00pm. Click here for the agenda.

Battery is included!

Last week, a Tesla battery, which will be tied into the School’s system of solar panels, was installed on the north side of the building. The battery is a Tesla Megapack 2, rated at 500 kVA. The 2-hour 562 kW battery array stores 1124 kWh of electricity, which is produced by the solar panels and stored when not needed for current building operations. The stored power is released back to the building during periods of peak building usage or solar panel unavailability.

Now at the Lincoln Library! Items from the 1994-1995 school project time capsules are now on display at the Lincoln Public Library. Stop in to check them out!

The presentation from the January 11th SBC meeting is here.

Honoring our history…

Just recently, the mobile that was commissioned in memory of School Committee member, Leslie Shansky Vagliano, was hung in the Media Center. The original installation of the mobile was approved by the School Committee in 2003, and it was placed in the Lincoln School Library. As part of this school project, the Library was transformed into the Dining Commons, and a new Media Center was built. Our thanks to Ken Bassett and Mary Helen Lorenz for taking care of the mobile for a few years. We are glad to have this piece of community history back in the building.

The agenda for the upcoming January 11th School Building Committee is here. More photos of the mobile in both its new and old locations are here.

Thank you, Joel Seeley!

https://www.smma.com/people/joel-seeley

Congratulations! At our December SBC meeting, Joel Seeley, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at SMMA Architects, announced that he is retiring at the end of the year. Joel, who has served as our Project Manager, has been such an important part of the Lincoln School project. Through all the ups and downs of the process, he has been a calm presence, a steady voice, and a source of wise advice. We are so very grateful to have had his expertise and experience guiding us over the past 5 1/2 years. Congratulations, Joel, on a career that has had an enormously positive impact on thousands of students and faculty! We wish you all the best whatever the next chapter brings.

(P.S. Want to see the info about our project on the SMMA website? Visit https://www.smma.com/work/modernism-twist, and here is a link to the end-of-project tour booklet.)

Project Update: The concrete pads for the transformers and the back-up battery have been installed. The equipment is scheduled for installation on December 27th, and it will require big machinery. Want to watch? The area near the Codman Pool provides a safe view. Click here for a link to the slides presented at last Wednesday’s SBC meeting.

1994-95 Time Capsules @ the Public Library: Starting in January, the Time Capsules that were on display during the Ribbon Cutting will be on view at the Library. The exhibit will span about 2 months, and will change every two weeks. Starting with Kindergarten and Grade 1, two grades will be on view at a time for a period of two weeks.