Kindle Education Public Charter School

the opportunity

KSS Architects collaborated with Kindle Education to design a new middle school within a historic 1927 office building in Jersey City’s rapidly developing Journal Square neighborhood. Despite a limited footprint and tight schedule, KSS completed the project for Kindle’s 2024-2025 school year.

Our Approach

The primary design challenge was fitting the school’s program into the building’s narrow floorplates, angled exterior walls, and low floor-to-floor heights on the third and fourth floors. To maximize natural light, classrooms, offices, and primary spaces were arranged along the perimeter, utilizing large existing windows. Classroom ceilings were left exposed to highlight the original concrete deck and steel structure, while acoustic panels were added to ensure an optimal learning environment. Painted in Kindle’s branding colors, the exposed ceilings and columns serve as a bold, contemporary accent, with each color indicating a specific grade level.

To support Kindle’s student-centered learning and cohort model, KSS created flexible breakout spaces for collaboration and engagement outside traditional classrooms. These include larger, open areas at corridor ends and smaller niches along hallways, with distinct ceiling finishes and colors to differentiate them. The corridor-end breakout spaces also offer views and allow natural daylight into the hallways. Lockers in Kindle’s brand colors add vibrancy to the corridors. KSS further conducted furniture test fits to optimize classroom layouts, experimenting with desk shapes and sizes to ensure flexibility and accommodate the required student count despite the limited room sizes.

Program

Classrooms, multipurpose room, breakout spaces, administrative offices

Partners

Dresdner Robin

Rock Brook

Phelps Construction Group

Photography

Edward Caruso