Compass Montessori School

Compass Montessori Secondary School

Faith Lutheran Church Addition & Remodel

Ewers Architecture Office

Telluride Mountain School

Santa Ana Office Building

Myers Bradley Devitt & Arp Law Office

Education and Event Center

Lowell Whiteman School Master Plan

Lowell Whiteman School Boy's Dorm

Historic Downtown Golden Facade Transformation

Sustainable Renovation of Historic Office

Universal Mind Office

“Peter's wonderful level of creativity combined with his intense attention to detail provided the perfect combination for this project. I could not have asked for better service, and I highly recommend Ewers Architecture.”

Katy Myers, assistant head of school

Sustainable and recycled exterior materials used in the Erdkinder Building at Compass Montessori

ERDKINDER SCHOOL

ERDKINDER COMMONS HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM

COMPASS MONTESSORI SECONDARY SCHOOL

Once in a while we are blessed with a project that is exciting and fun as well as rewarding and meaningful. This is such a project. From beginning to end, the design and construction for this Jefferson County charter school has fulfilled everyone’s dreams.

This new campus for seventh through twelfth graders was envisioned from the beginning as two separate buildings. The middle school is an “erdkinder” school, meaning literally “children of the earth.” This is a farm school where the students will raise livestock and crops as well as learn classroom basics. The high school is geared toward more mature self-learning students, in a professional and exciting environment.

This project was a challenge on many levels throughout design and construction. The two major challenges were to meet the schedule and budget.

Schedule: This project was designed in just over four months, including dealing with the county officials to obtain all the necessary approvals. Then the project was built in just six months. This was accomplished by hiring the contractor early in the design process, ordering the steel building during the design development phase, and everyone working as a team.

Budget: The project was built for about $90 per square foot, while other Jefferson County schools are being built for $110/sf.

Fun fact: This is the first Montessori high school built from the ground up in the United States. There are only a handful of Montessori high schools in the U.S., and all the other schools are operating out of buildings that were originally designed for other uses.

Building Area:

31,135 gross square feet

- erdkinder school: 17,510 sf

- high school: 13,625 sf

Site Area:

8 acres

Number of Students:

330 on entire campus

- erdkinder school: 180

- high school: 150

Construction Cost:

$2.85 million