Sustainability & Innovation Hub – Montgomery County Community College, West Campus

This adaptive reuse of a former PECO Building provides contemporary classrooms, makerspaces and support spaces utilizing a combination of grant money and capital reserve funds.

March 29, 2018

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Pottstown, PA

This adaptive reuse of a former PECO Building provides contemporary classrooms, makerspaces and support spaces utilizing a combination of grant money and capital reserve funds. The project received Montgomery County Planning Commission’s 2016 Montgomery Award for sustainable design, successful restoration, vision, and collaborative efforts.

Classrooms are bathed in natural light creating an inviting feel. Their simplicity, flexibility, attention to acoustics, access to technology, power, and data establish more of an academic laboratory environment, responding pedagogy changes.

The Upper Level Innovation Center is radically simple as an open volume. The space will can accommodate larger lectures or multiple smaller loosely defined collaboration areas by simply reconfiguring the furniture.

In addition to the general classrooms, there are specialized labs and makerspaces including: Aquaponics; Hydroponics systems; Engineering; Electrical and Robotics Labs.

All photos courtesy of Dorothy Verdon

“The design is the strength of the building and congruent with what the College wanted to achieve with a limited budget. Murray’s designed flexibility of the academic spaces allowing for student engagement, interaction and collaboration which is what we originally envisioned.”

Jaime J Garrido Past Associate Vice President for Facilities & Construction February 10, 2018