As of this past June, construction is officially underway on the Shirley Quadrivium Center. The new facility, set to complete construction in time for the autumn of the 2020-21 school year, will comprehensively house Hill’s STEM programs and unite the two Widener buildings into one, cutting-edge space. 

The project was initiated six years ago by Headmaster, Zack Lehman, and the construction was officially approved by the Board of Trustees last fall. 

Since then, in addition to fundraising and conceptualizing, Lehman and his team spent a year traveling around the country to learn more about the state of the art in curriculum, pedagogy, and facilities. 

“With that in mind, we began piloting new courses like Engineering, Integrated Math, and Accelerated Science,” Lehman said. 

In addition to the repurposed Widener spaces, now wings to be called Widener East and West, the Quadrivium will include features such as much more comfortable classrooms and various spaces for collaboration and research as well as a flexible lobby for events and presentations, an auditorium for larger classes and guest lectures, a new visual communications lab, and an emerging technologies lab, according to Lehman. 

By having all of the STEM subjects in one place, Lehman said that, among other things, students and faculty will “benefit from more interdisciplinary work and connections.”

Currently, both Widener interiors are completely stripped and the buildings and their foundations are prepared to receive the massive update. 

“As with any old buildings, the challenge is what are you going to find once you start demolition and open up the interior,” said Robin Rhoads, assistant director of facilities services for capital and special projects. In this case, the construction teams are in the process of removing all of the outdated and worn materials as well as the unexpected underground rock that has been interfering with the build. The structural steel of the link itself is set to go up at the end of September, at which point the Quadrivium itself will start to take shape. 

Even though the buildings are currently “pretty much a shell” according to  Rhoads, students will still be able to see many aspects of the original architecture such as the woodwork of the Science Library, the staircases, and leaded windows. 

For the entirety of this year, science, engineering, and computer science are temporarily relocated into Dell Science, modular units situated in the empty lot that once held the old hockey rink and last year’s Dell Dining. The units were shipped in June and have since undergone extensive interior customization in order to accommodate the specific needs of regular STEM classrooms. 

“I am most excited to see two iconic buildings being repurposed and reimagined as our most cutting-edge space on our campus,” Lehman said. “Developing a project like this takes time and can be disruptive, but there’s nothing like watching campus transformation happening in front of your eyes!  I think it has been worth the wait.”