Located between Quebec Parkway and the Rocky Mountain National Wildlife Refuge, the high school was an opportunity to improve not only the school’s image but to become a participant in Commerce City’s Prairie Gateway Project - an educational, recreational and environmentally managed destination east of the historic Commerce City.
The school’s significance to the revitalization of Commerce City is architecturally expressed through a large, welcoming civic plaza that opens up to the Quebec Parkway and 72nd intersection, drawing people and activity into the school complex; transforming the site into an urban campus. The main circulation spine of the school bounds this plaza, activating it from within. These gestures seek to celebrate the “front-porch” character of the surrounding neighborhoods at an urban scale, thereby anchoring the high school to the local community.
