Historic Winterset High School apartments
ASK Studio · Winterset, IA
Overview
Originally built in 1921, The Winterset High School Apartments is an adaptive reuse of the historic 3-story brick and concrete school building into 27 senior living apartments. To adapt the building, the classroom spaces, a portion of the previously enclosed balcony, and gymnasium were converted into 0, 1 and 2 bedroom apartments, while the remaining interior spaces and exteriors were rehabilitated or preserved to closely resemble the original design.
The Winterset Highschool Apartments is the adaptive reuse of the original 1921 high school building into 27 senior living apartments. Originally constructed as the town school, the building was most recently occupied by the school administrative services but was left vacant in 2018. With skepticism over its future life, it became clear that restoration was the only answer. The historic structure featured a classic, symmetrical configuration in the collegiate gothic revival style. Previous, less historically conscious alterations completed in the 60s had proven to leave the spatial character of the interiors somewhat diminished. Room reconfigurations, acoustical ceiling tile, added materials/layers, and the detrimental replacement of the original windows with half glazed, half spandrel aluminum windows made the focus of the rehabilitation clear: Rejuvenate the latent, historic character through preserving, and where necessary, recreating the spatial volume and light that were originally experienced. Spaces originally used as classrooms have been converted to apartments, leveraging the proportions and availability of windows to require minimal alterations. The auditorium and primary circulation spaces were preserved/ rehabilitated, while the gymnasium was creatively converted through insertion of a partial floor level. This allowed for the possibility of stacked units where natural light could be capitalized on and larger, lofted units where the exterior grade proved to limit access to natural light at the lowest floor.
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