Winner: Sustainable

Heritage Elementary School

Heritage Elementary School is a state-of-the-art 146,000 sq.ft. building with two floors and multiple wings.  It was designed to simulate a natural environment by bringing nature into and around the building.

Outside each grade wing is a concrete bench with a wooden top. The concrete walls were poured with a wood plank form liner, high-range water reducer, and higher content of fine aggregate to achieve the look of wood on its vertical sides; the architecturally exposed steel columns running into the bench tops are made to look like tree branches.

The school was built with sustainable elements, including the geofield on the south side of the building, solar arrays on the rooftop, and a green roof system of plants that can endure Wisconsin winters.

The foundations that support the school were a commercial 3000-psi footing and 4000-psi commercial wall mix.  All interior flatwork and slab on metal deck mixes were 4000-psi with no air entrainment.  The sustainable mixes used a combination of fly ash and slag.

Construction was difficult at times, due to the presence of kids, buses, and other school-related traffic during the morning and afternoon, when most of the larger-scale pours occurred.  There were rigorous traffic patterns to keep construction equipment away from the intermediate school next door.

Project Team Members

Owner: Waunakee Community School District

Concrete Supplier: Advanced Concrete

Architect: Eppstein Uhen Architects

Engineer: raSmith

Contractor: Vogel Bros. Building Corp.