Brookline High School

Brookline High School—a multi-building campus nestled among single-family homes and open green space—faced the pressing need to expand due to growing student enrollment. With limited room for development, the design committee, led by William Rawn Associates, explored multiple options and ultimately selected a challenging site: one partially bisected by the MBTA Green Line.

The program for the new building (which would span the rail line) required a diverse range of spaces, including an active “front porch,” a lively cafeteria, quiet science labs, a library, traditional classrooms, and a highly noise-sensitive, 125-seat white box performance space.

To help assess the need for unusual design features, the project team gathered in another nearby building that spans the same rail line prior to construction. All agreed that the noise and vibration from trains passing under the building would be unacceptable in the new school building, particularly in the white box theater.

To prevent train-induced vibrations from entering the building, Acentech recommended installing resilient pads beneath the column base plates closest to the tracks. These high-grade rubber pads, reinforced with steel intermediate plates, are designed to last up to 100 years and underwent extensive testing prior to installation. For the white box theater, Acentech developed a floating floor slab and box-in-box wall construction to ensure superior sound isolation from indoor and outdoor sources. Additionally, to mitigate airborne noise from passing trains, we specified 1-inch laminated, insulated, exterior glazing, complemented by a second layer of 1/2-inch interior glazing, with a 4-inch air gap between the two.

The new 22 Tappan building is a testament to the creativity and collaboration among design, engineering, and construction teams. Here, trains pass silently beneath as classes, performances, and student activities carry on undisturbed.

Read more about this complex project in ‘Designing a building with a train running through it,’ written by the project team and published by Building Design + Construction!