Rehoboth Elementary School
An Interview
Location: Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
Completion Date: August 2019
An interview with Brittany L van Veen, and team from Tetra Tech & Associates, Sarah Dennie from our sales representative office Lighting Solutions Inc, and Kristen Pietrobon from Zaneen.
What was the project vision?
Rehoboth Elementary is located in the coastal town of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The design vision for the school reflects those natural environments and takes notes from the beach, bringing the outdoors inside for the children to flourish alongside. The school is bright and light, with a widespread use of white and pops of color on the walls that are reminiscent of colors you would find on the beach; from umbrellas to beach towels, to sunrises and sunsets. We knew we wanted to inject the highly-local “beach and art scene” for the children within this school’s reach.
How did the project develop in terms of design from the initial concept?
Rehoboth is the third, and final, a school that Tetra Tech designed for the Cape Henlopen School District using the adaptive version of the original Love Creek Elementary School. From the Love Creek Elementary space influence, we still wanted to make a school that felt unique and standalone. The beach design aesthetic was a major design influence. Like the previous two schools, the main stair tower is undoubtedly the biggest focal point of the building. Here, Rehoboth thoughtfully references the historic WWII watchtowers along the Delaware coastline.
The lighting fixtures rounded out this design aesthetic. One fixture, in particular, has a meandering curvature shape that we were able to customize for the space to mimic beach patterns and waves. The majority of the light fixtures are white to invoke that minimalist, museum-quality feel.
As Prolicht often says, the Super-G is an illusion of motion, and for Rehoboth Elementary it references patterns found in the sand and waves in the sea.
Why did you specify Zaneen?
Furlow Associates has been a great collaborator to Tetra Tech, and has worked with us to meet both the client’s criteria — LED requirements, safety requirements, lumen packages, etc. — and our design vision. As our lighting consultant, they first brought us the Zaneen fixtures as a versatile and extensive lighting package with as much customizability for the unique spaces as we needed. This allowed for the same quality of lighting throughout the school with different aesthetic features, and really made Zaneen stand out. As a result, we were able to use the same fixture often but change the finish, or lumen package to make it look like a whole new light for our different spaces.
What type of challenges did you experience from the time of specification to installation?
Due to the given aesthetic goal of using standard products across the district, creating an interior that was unique to HOB, as well as the theme of “shipbuilding” we needed to continue using the light that could provide all the needs for the client, as well as the basic lighting necessities of LED requirements, safety requirements, lumen packages.
How did Zaneen contribute in solving these challenges?
Zaneen’s products and customizable lighting packages and finishes remain versatile and competitively priced, which has helped us immensely. As a result, what we specified, is what we have been able to install for our client.
versatile and competitively priced
What is your favorite part about this project?
The compelling feature of this project is the unique use of shiplap, bright punches of colors that strike color-bomb masks across the floors and walls, and the museum quality feel you don’t typically find in other schools.
This project is related to two other schools that were all executed as a single project. The leading project was Love Creek Elementary School, and the second project was H.O. Brittingham Elementary School.
Products specified,
Rehoboth Elementary School: Custom Glorious, Super-G
Love Creek Elementary School: Custom Glorious
Brittingham Elementary School: Custom Glorious
Thank you for reading our interview! We hope you liked it.
Chat soon,
Kristen Pietrobon
