Josiah Quincy Upper School Opens and Brings New Opportunities to Boston’s Chinatown Neighborhood!

Boston’s newest public school building is officially open, with learning in full swing for 650 students across grades 6-12. Located in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood, the Josiah Quincy Upper School (JQUS) advances the City’s goals for high-level, inclusive education and environmental sustainability, providing Boston Public Schools students with state-of-the-art learning facilities that also serve the local community.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony brought city, state, and school officials, project team members, and the JQUS community together to celebrate the new middle high school and the many opportunities it will bring for both Boston students and residents. As one of the first projects to open under the Green New Deal for Boston Public Schools, JQUS is leading the way with a design that prioritizes equity, sustainability, and a community focus. The school is also on track to achieve LEED Platinum certification, further cementing its status as a model for resilient, sustainable architecture.

“If you think about a school as the physical embodiment of all the talent, imagination, and possibility of the young people it serves — that is this building!”

Michelle Wu | Mayor, City of Boston

One focal point of the school’s environment- and community-focused design is the new rooftop green space. HMFH’s design transformed the high-rise school’s rooftop into an outdoor learning oasis, complete with a STEM classroom, native plantings, walking paths, and seating areas. Located near two highways on just one acre of land, JQUS’s site in a dense, urban environment initially presented challenges. However, the rooftop brings new life to Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood, which has the lowest green space per capita in the City. The benefits of this landscaped roof will not only positively impact the student body but the entire neighborhood community who can also experience health and climate benefits. Specifically, the green roof will help reduce urban heat-island effect and stormwater runoff, increase biodiversity, and mitigate air pollution from the highway.

HMFH’s nature-focused design extends beyond the rooftop. Inside the school, south-facing classrooms with expansive windows deliver ample daylight to students, while an innovative HVAC system draws in filtered air to ensure a healthy interior environment with optimal air quality in all classrooms.

Notably, the all-electric, zero-carbon middle high school will be a resource for the greater community as well as its student body, allowing public access to community-oriented shared spaces on the first and second floors, including the cafeteria, media center, black box theater, auditorium, and gymnasium.

“This state-of-the-art facility represents our unwavering commitment to providing a world-class education in an environment that nurtures and inspires.”

Mary Skipper | Superintendent, Boston Public Schools

While the ribbon-cutting signifies JQUS’s official opening, students had returned to school a week earlier and have since been enjoying the new facilities, including collaborative project areas, modern labs, small group workrooms, breakout areas, and flexible furniture designed to support a variety of learning modes. With its full range of educational amenities and International Baccalaureate program offerings, its emphasis on sustainable, healthy, and welcoming environments, and its public-facing spaces for community use, the Josiah Quincy Upper School will be an often-used and highly valued resource by both students and the surrounding neighborhood.

Middle High Schools Help Communities Make the Most of Educational and Financial Resources

When faced with replacing or modernizing aging middle and high schools, communities must grapple with significant financial and educational challenges. In many cases, particularly where existing schools are small, it makes sound financial and educational sense to combine academic programs into a single facility. Below are a few of the strategies that HMFH incorporates when working with school districts and communities to design co-located middle high schools.

Efficiency Through Shared Spaces

Designing middle high schools creates the opportunity for districts to share essential spaces, thereby eliminating the duplication of facilities such as:

Kitchens
Gymnasiums, alternative physical education spaces, fitness rooms, outdoor sports fields and tracks
Theaters and auditoriums
Music spaces including chorus and band rooms
Media centers or libraries

If these facilities were built separately, each school would need its own, leading to higher construction and operational costs. Additionally, by combining the schools, expensive but often infrequently used spaces such as theaters or auditoriums can achieve cost effectiveness simply by increasing utilization rates. In these cases, middle school students also benefit from having access to sophisticated performance and assembly spaces not typically available in standalone middle school buildings.

Operational, Environmental, and Logistical Improvements

Beyond construction cost savings, co-locating middle and high schools results in operational efficiencies as well. A shared mechanical plant, for instance, lowers ongoing facility-wide expenses, requires fewer personnel to manage its services, and leads to a significant reduction in long-term expenditures. Equally valuable, shared HVAC and electrical systems almost certainly reduce a facility’s overall energy expenditure, creating opportunities for minimizing the school’s environmental impact.

Combining middle and high schools also allows for more efficient transportation to and from the facility. Buses can serve both student populations, reducing the number of trips required while lowering transportation costs and reducing fuel consumption.

Educational Benefits of Co-located Schools

While the financial benefits are compelling, the educational advantages of a combined middle and high school are equally significant. Shared facilities mean students experience fewer transitions between buildings throughout their educational career. Transitioning from middle to high school can be a challenging time for students, and a combined school can provide a more fluid educational journey.

A combined school also creates opportunities for increased collaboration among educators. Middle and high school teachers can work together more effectively, gaining a deeper understanding of their students’ needs and academic progress. This collaboration can lead to more personalized and consistent support for students as they move from one grade to the next.

Additionally, middle school students in a co-located school may have access to high school-level classes and specialized spaces such as maker spaces, robotics labs, career technical education (CTE) shops, and advanced science labs. These resources, which are typically unavailable in standalone middle schools, enrich the educational experience and provide early exposure to advanced course work. For high school programs that feature strong CTE opportunities, a middle school population can serve as a feeder, introducing students to career pathways earlier in their academic careers.

HMFH Advances the Middle High School Model

When designing middle high schools, we use strategies that result in optimal educational experiences, cost savings, operational efficiencies, and lowered energy consumption. Our expertise in designing for this relatively new program type continues to grow. To date, we have completed eight middle high schools, including the award-winning Saugus Middle High School and the Josiah Quincy Upper School for the City of Boston. And we are currently in design for the first Middle High School in the State of Rhode Island.

The advantages of combined middle high schools are clear in addressing the challenge of modernizing or replacing aging school facilities. HMFH meets these challenges with design expertise and a passionate commitment to creating schools that offer long-term benefits to students, teachers, administrators, and the communities where they stand.