Corona has long been a microcosm of the city's dense ethnic diversity. Dominated today by young working-class Latin American families, the area has grown from close to 99,000 people during the 2000 Census to over 109,000 in 2010, the year P.S. 330 was established. At the time, this populous district didn't have a permanent location for the nascent school, so its initial 200 kindergartners (and subsequent students), all overflow from overcrowded Corona schools, were bused more than 2 miles to a temporary incubator space in a former parochial school.

The resulting trapezoidal building is light and airy, and establishes an immediate connection with the community via friendly patterns of fenestration that encourage views inside and out. Vertical slices of window wall reveal brightly colored stairwells as well as the school library, where artist Terence Gower's sculptural tribute to onetime Queens resident Isamu Noguchi floats from a double-height portion of the ceiling. (It was commissioned by the Public Art for Public School program.) At ground level, horizontal runs of high-impact exterior glazing and interior windows allow passersby to look directly through the building to the playground out back, into the cafeteria, and down to a glass-enclosed gym/auditorium in the basement. Dubbed the “gymatorium” by the architects, this space holds up to 314 occupants and has a stage-cum-dance studio at one end.

Newcomers feel welcome when they enter the bright green portal for the first time. The floor plan is logical and clear—with offices to the right, the schoolyard door straight ahead, and a path to the cafeteria (overlooking the gym) on the left. The firm's thoughtful use of materials, such as wood slats for the ceiling throughout these public areas, results in a warm environment with a unique sense of bonhomie for a New York City public school.

“We leveraged the common spaces to make them perform with maximum utility,” says partner in charge Jeffrey Murphy. “Linking the gym, cafeteria, lobby, and playground creates a bigger space for school-wide activities and community events,” he adds. An extra-wide 13-foot corridor (the SCA standard is 8 feet) with quartz-topped window seats manages spillover, doubles as a waiting area for visitors, and aids traffic flow when kids are entering or exiting the building.

Daylight and the judicious use of color contribute to the atmosphere of well-being. “We used the sunken gym as a light well around which a lot of things circulate,” says Murphy. “Even when the kids go downstairs, they can look up, see the street and know where they are.” Similarly, each of the upper floors is color-coded to help wayfinding—green on the second floor, orange on the third, blue on the fourth—with colorful patches of vinyl tile and matching bench tops adjacent to the expansive windows that flank the halls on every level.

Comfortably settled in their school for over a year now, the students enjoy vistas of the park during class time and can watch planes landing at LaGuardia Airport from the library. They can even see Manhattan on clear days from the building's west side. “They love it,” says principal LaShawnna Harris, “especially the kids who were in the old building.”

The families are just as enthusiastic, she notes. “They're really excited to be able to see what's going on with their kids. We are constantly getting parents, especially at the beginning of the school year, who line Northern Boulevard in the morning and stay for 30 minutes just watching the kids in the gym or walking down the hallway.”

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