Indian Springs School | Dining Hall

Education (K-12)

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Indian Springs School, located just outside of Birmingham, Alabama, is an independent school recognized nationally as a leader in boarding and day education for grades 8–12. Their new Kayser Samford Community Commons officially opened in December 2022. The goal was to create more than just a dining hall. The school wanted to provide a setting where students could organically socialize, dine, attend school events, and use the space for a variety of activities between meals. Ultimately, they sought an environment where people could naturally engage in teamwork.

Furnishing the Social Hub
BI provided solutions that successfully accomplished this goal. We offered different seating arrangements, ranging from varying seating and table heights to an assortment of seating configurations. We specially selected materials and textures for the space. These variations offer students a place to gather for mealtimes as well as a social hub between meals. Students can use the space to collaborate on team projects, work heads-down on individual assignments, or simply take time near the on-campus lake.

Design and Durability Principles
The design of the new Community Commons seamlessly blends the indoors and outdoors with natural materials, large windows, and an earthy color scheme. We added wood finishes to the small products and specified solid colors of durable laminate for the large round tables. Due to the high-traffic nature of student environments, we selected robust materials and finishes.

We chose textiles using calm, earthy colors, purposefully avoiding the typically bright or collegiate finishes associated with student environments. Correct finishes and product durability held equal importance for the outdoor space. With a dramatic view of the lake, we chose muted finish selections to avoid competition with Mother Nature.

The overall result is a furniture solution that provides students and guests with a variety of indoor and outdoor engagement opportunities. Furthermore, the finish palette complements the architecture and the surrounding landscape.