Middle Tennessee Christian High School

Project Statement

The new high school building at Middle Tennessee Christian School in Murfreesboro marks the first major step of a multi-phase master planning process. Its purpose was to give high school students their own dedicated home, separating middle school from high-school while strengthening campus identity and community. The result is a two-story, 25-classroom addition that wraps two sides of the existing gymnasium, balancing adjacency with autonomy.
Central to the design is the creation of community-focused spaces. A grand, two-story entrance canopy welcomes students into the building while providing shade over an outdoor terrace, blending interior and exterior spaces and creating an approachable entry sequence. A new courtyard links the high school building with existing campus structures, serving as a hub for gathering, learning, and fellowship.
Design inspiration was rooted in the ideas of family and home. The gabled rooflines reference residential forms familiar to the community, while the scale and materiality express the presence of a modern educational institution. This balance reflects the school’s dual mission: to provide a nurturing environment and prepare students for college and beyond.
Inside, the building continues this theme of belonging and aspiration. A central “living room” offers a communal space for students to gather informally, while classrooms, science labs, and flexible learning zones support a variety of teaching styles and collaborative work. The design challenge of wrapping classrooms around an existing pre-engineered gymnasium meant one-sided access to natural light, so careful attention was paid to ensure circulation spaces are activated with light-filled nooks to encourage connection and interaction, extending learning beyond the classroom walls.
Transparency, durability, and stewardship guided the design process. Careful material selection ensures a balance of efficiency and warmth, while strategic layouts enhance visibility, safety, and connectivity between students and faculty. Punched openings added into the existing gym walls give a second-floor student lounge direct visual connection to sports and other events happening beyond. The building is designed not just for today’s needs but with flexibility to accommodate future growth and evolving educational approaches.
More than an addition, the new high school building redefines the student experience at Middle Tennessee Christian School. It provides a dedicated home for high school learners, fosters independence, and creates spaces that strengthen community across the broader campus. At its core, the project embodies the school’s mission—uniting academic rigor, spiritual formation, and personal growth within an environment that feels both aspirational and welcoming.
This building is both a foundation for the school’s future and a daily reminder of its values, ensuring that faith and learning remain interwoven in the lives of students for generations to come.

Framework for Design Excellence Narrative

- WELL-BEING: converted surface parking lot between buildings into a usable courtyard for students. Encourages walkability and connectivity and prioritizes student safety by removing vehicular traffic from students' paths of travel across the various buildings on campus. Intimate break-out spaces, student and faculty lounge spaces, and collaboration zones throughout the building encourage student/staff interactions outside the classroom.
- INTEGRATION: the big idea being family & home and the "living room" where generations of students, families, and educators can integrate and interact.  Upper level terrace created interaction with nature and an elevated, controlled connection to daylight and fresh air.  Choosing to add onto an existing building to help seamlessly integrate the high school spaces into the rest of campus (aka instead of building a separate building) and minimizes construction costs and waste.  The locations also creates a natural progression of students across campus - one building is elementary, then middle, now high school as you make your way across the campus.

DISCOVERY: being the first project in the master plan, the deep discovery conversations with the school stakeholders led not only to this design, but have also influenced future projects and growth for generations to come.  Learning to adjust to changing market volatility and unprecedented escalation during the timeframe between master plan completion and a new project breaks ground, and how to better protect a school that funds building projects entirely based on fundraising