Red Clay Consolidated School District
Full Architecture and Engineering Services for McKean High School Culinary Arts Renovation
The new Culinary Arts Center at Thomas McKean High School is the latest academic achievement for the Red Clay Consolidated School District. The Culinary Arts Program is intent on keeping up with the demands of contemporary food selection, menu choices, cooking, and baking. Recent renovations have created a state-of-the-art facility that will prepare students for continuing education or work at a variety of culinary occupations in a range of commercial kitchen settings.
Designed first and foremost as a learning center, the Program includes a commercial teaching kitchen and a 32-seat Café open to the public. The Café also serves as a theory classroom complete with state-of-the-art technology. Designed as a full-service restaurant kitchen with modern commercial foodservice equipment, the production kitchen teaches line cooking and baking while providing students with a "real-life" commercial kitchen experience. It is also used to prepare meals for the Café.
The program provides learning opportunities, both in the form of observing instructors while they explain their cooking, and work stations for students to learn through hands-on practice. This successful culinary arts facility gracefully integrates these two challenging aspects. The Culinary Arts Center provides every high-tech amenity to support televised culinary instruction with multiple flat screens for internal audiences, plus state-of-the art video transmission capability to any remote location.
The Culinary Arts Center also incorporates sustainability practices and a variety of cost-saving techniques. For example, recycled materials were used as part of the interior finishes, and energy conservation systems were installed and designed to be at least twenty-five percent better than standard energy requirements.