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Terrace overlooking the athletic fields
at the Flint Hill School.

Teenage Dream
Teenage Dream Prakash Patel
All photos ©

Private Middle School Offers
State-of-the-Art Learning Environment

by Celia Carnes

In 2015, the seventh and eighth grade classes at the Flint couldn’t break out of,” said Elise Robinson, AIA,
Hill School were experiencing some growing pains. At principal and project manager at Bowie Gridley
the time, the middle grade classrooms were housed in Architects (now part of DLR Group). As anyone who
the same building with pre-K and elementary students. has tried to engage a bored, unplugged teenager
That Lower School Campus, formerly an old-age home, in a confined space could attest, a solution was
had been adjusted to suit the independent, progressive desperately needed.
Flint Hill School’s educational standards, but it wasn’t Bowie Gridley was called on to design the new
meeting the needs of its tech-savvy, active, and curious Peterson Middle School facility dedicated to grades
adolescent occupants. The teenagers were bursting at seven and eight, directly adjacent to Flint Hill’s
the seams, stuck without much light, space, or adequate existing Upper School Campus in Oakton, Virginia.
access to electrical outlets “in a concrete building they The team “interviewed almost every teacher from

54 TEENAGE DREAM