When designing the new 1,500-student, 300,000 SF Gallatin High School in Bozeman, Montana, the design team and school district gravitated toward a layout inspired by a ‘Town Center’ commons.  Much like in a town, we envisioned Gallatin High School’s Town Center as a dynamic, shared space at the heart of the school. It represents the convergence of learning “streets,” the primary social arteries linking the school together, which are widened to offer collaborative breakout spaces. The Town Center doubles as the cafeteria and is surrounded by important community functions such as the administration offices (“town hall”), library, art gallery, gymnasium, auditorium, and food court. 

With the Town Center serving as a hub, one learning street is oriented to the north, terminating in a wall of glass facing the Bridger Range. The east learning street leads to academic community areas that look out at the Tobacco Root Mountains. The final learning street leads to the music and athletics core and terminates into a break-out music plaza.  The glass wall of the Town Center also connects viewers with the Spanish Peaks to the southwest. These dramatic views are the backdrop for expansive, creative thinking. 

Another key element was the idea of cross-pollination, allowing for greater visibility into other learning areas to spur student’s interest in trying something new. Widened hallways pull in more natural light to interior spaces, all with the goal of supporting a learning environment that feels accessible and full of opportunity. 

Rather than spreading the school across two levels, a more compact three-story solution offers advantages such as shorter travel distances from one side of the school to the and greater efficiency in the building’s footprint, systems, and energy usage.  

These planning and design factors reinforce the primary guiding principle of the project — to create a strong sense of community. The Town Center serves as a unifying element both architecturally and socially. It’s a place where all the school’s smaller neighborhoods and academic communities come together to share and connect, and it serves as a vibrant, diverse area where students and educators can form bonds and strengthen relationships.