The recently completed renovation and expansion of the Sound School ― a unique vocational school devoted to the study of aquaculture in New Haven, Connecticut ― benefited greatly from close collaboration on the part of engineers, educators, and technical specialists. When describing the unique nature of the Sound School ― a vocational high school that focuses on aquaculture and is situated on the shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven, Connecticut ― Robert Lynn likes to tell a story. An employee of the Gilbane Building Company, of Providence, Rhode Island, Lynn is the deputy program director of the New Haven School Construction Program and represented the city as the owner's agent during the recently completed expansion and renovation of the innovative school. At one point early on in the design phase, Lynn accompanied members of the design team and school representatives on a trip to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to visit the Marine Biological Laboratory. The group was visiting the acclaimed research laboratory to see firsthand some of the most advanced facilities in the field of marine biology, and by the end of the tour the participants were practically "drooling all over the place" after witnessing the laboratory's sophisticated technology, Lynn recalls. "They wanted to mimic what Woods Hole had," he says, albeit on a smaller scale. As the program manager for the planned upgrade of the Sound School, Lynn says that he felt compelled to remind the group that Woods Hole is a "world-renowned research facility, but we're building a high school." Ultimately, however, the school's proponents would realize their aspirations, and today the Sound School "feels like a university-level research lab," Lynn says. "You walk into the building and you do not think that you're in a high school."
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