Tecton Architects, in association with DuBose Associates, received the Bronze Award for the Rogan Atrium at the Clark Center for Science & Mathematics located at Loomis Chaffee School in Bloomfield, Connecticut. This is the 2nd Annual Schooldesigner.com K-12 Design Collabetition. Schooldesigner.com is the only website focused exclusively on promoting high-quality K-12 school design around the world.

Using structural challenges as teaching opportunities, the atrium truly performs as a lesson in physics and mathematics. Design features include a 3-story open stair acting as gravity test chamber, new roof monitors focusing sunlight through student prism experiments, and a true pendulum continually circling in a pit of sand.

Symbolizing the importance of shared knowledge to the future of science, the space playfully combines old discoveries (3000-piece rock collection, fossilized dinosaur prints found on campus, and student time capsule freed from beneath the building) with new creations (prize-winning robots, automated fiber-optic and LED display lighting, realistic Raptor footprints in new floor stones, and a newly concealed 2008 time capsule).

The project, specifically this element, provides a new presence for the Clark Center that is engaging and dynamic and reinforces the importance of science and math in the schools curriculum.