A steadily growing district faced with already overcrowded schools, the Garrard County Board of Education opted to build a new high school and redistribute its student population to alleviate overcrowding.

The new Garrard County High School was designed for an 84-acre site with construction planned in three phases. Phase 1 entailed the construction of the main body of the high school including classrooms to serve 800 students and common space to accommodate 1,000.

The high school incorporates administrative and standard classroom spaces with several specialty areas like family and consumer science classrooms, technical labs, business labs, music and art. The design organizes departments based on a radiating spoke plan. Because future phases are planned for the school, spaces were carefully laid out to ensure that departments could easily shift to accommodate future phases while remaining congruous.

The building incorporates a wide variety of high-performance features including geothermal HVAC, highly-efficient insulation and a reflective roof. The building was designed to capitalize on its solar orientation and both the HVAC and lighting systems feature automatic and individual controls. Interior finishes, caulks and adhesives with low or no volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were specified to preserve indoor air quality.

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