Brighton High School
Salt Lake City, UT

Project Strategy

This project was a complex phased replacement of the existing building during the COVID-19 epidemic while the school remained operational. The old Brighton High School building was circular in form, and to uphold tradition, the interior design team incorporated circles into the interior in many creative ways, from the floor to the ceiling, as the basis for design for the new Brighton High. On the floor, grand graphic inlays abound; even the Bengal tiger stripes are in circular form.

Eleven-thousand-foot Wasatch peaks provide the backdrop for the school, and the designers integrated the natural characteristics of the school's setting into each floor: lakes and rivers on the first, trails on the second, and peaks on the third. On each floor, the orange and blue school colors were complimented with other colors of nature to achieve a truly inspirational interior.

Colors and patterns change from one section of the building to another, so the floor serves as a wayfinding method.

The use of inlaid floor graphics is extensive, running throughout all hallways and common areas. The common areas feature exceptionally large graphic insets, including the Bengal Tiger Paw. All graphics are hand-cut.

Brighton High School now has a new state-of-the-art facility, large enough to accommodate future growth - and the floor is spectacular!

Unique Installation Challenge Strategy

This project was a complex phased replacement of the existing building during the COVID-19 epidemic - WHILE THE SCHOOL REMAINED OPERATIONAL. During this construction, operations were in constant flux, with classrooms, offices, and other workspaces transitioning from the existing facilities to completed phases of the new facility. These circumstances presented significant and continuous flooring installation challenges.

For example:
- Layout points required us to start at several independent ends of the school. The installers worked from the outside toward the center where complex patterns had to match up perfectly.
- Hallways were not installed all at once. Half of the hallway (i.e., the left side or the right side) was installed first. When that half was ready for foot traffic, the student and faculty traffic was re-routed onto that floor and the team installed the second half.
- Complex coordination and scheduling, necessary on all large construction projects, became much more complex and demanding. Along with standard COVID regulations, special ones precluded more than one trade from working in the same room at the same time and required tools to be sanitized before sharing with another worker. Accommodating the school's operations, including special events, interfered with customary work schedules and times, and product deliveries were restricted to evenings and weekends.

Apart from these unusual and difficult working conditions, the work itself presented an installation challenge. Serpentine patterns flow up and down all hallways on three floors. Ultra-large circular insets adorn the common areas. Bengal tiger stripes are cut in a circular pattern. The Tiger Paw was projected onto the wall from which a stencil was made. Then the stencil was used to trace the Tiger Paw onto the resilient flooring. All insets were hand cut.

The result is spectacular.