PROJECT NARRARTIVE

When booming enrollment required additional accommodations, Prince William County Public Schools and Moseley Architects collaborated closely to re-imagine the middle school experience. Potomac Shores Middle School signifies a major departure from PWCPS’ previous traditional school prototype to a 21st learning environment designed for world-class education.

The needs we identified shared a forward-thinking theme that would ultimately shape the new facility. PWCPS’ enhanced career and technical education program warranted purpose-built spaces where it could flourish. Incorporating design concepts common among high schools would allow 9th graders to enter schools that may be new to them, but not unfamiliar. Later to become acutely valued after social distancing, this building needed to bring people together through spaces for student collaboration as well as features for community use.

With capacity for 1,450 students, the three-story configuration dedicates a floor level for each grade, allotting them their own distinctive classrooms, extended learning spaces, maker spaces, and collaboration spaces. All maker spaces have direct access to an outdoor learning environments for experiments, testing, and group work. A STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) lab comprises three connected spaces for preparation, production, and material storage. As the building’s central hub, an expansive media center with soaring two-story windows invites an upward gaze into the sky of a world without limits.