The new Wang Hall is open at the Middle School after a year of renovations.

Wang Hall, previously Reynolds Hall, has a new eighth grade lounge. In years before the renovation, eighth grade students spent their free time in the hallways by classrooms or in their deans’ offices. The teachers and deans found this arrangement disruptive to their classes and meetings.

“Before, part of the eighth grade deans’ job was to go outside and yell at the kids to be quiet then go inside to finish their conversation,” Head of Middle School Jon Wimbish said. “So we’re trying to ameliorate that a little bit [with the new lounge].”

A new space unofficially called the “den,” a play on the idea of a wolverine den, holds tables and chairs on the second floor for students to use to work on homework or class projects.

Eighth grade lockers are now on the second floor, facing the senior garden, with a canopy installed to protect them from rain. Now that the lockers no longer line the walls indoors, Wimbish said that the hallways have opened up.

Visual arts classrooms are now spaces that are specifically designed for art classes as opposed to the Reynolds Hall arts classrooms, which were previously science labs. World Language classrooms are now larger.

The bottom floor contains classrooms for Human Development, and the first floor holds World Languages classrooms. The second floor holds mostly history classrooms and a few visual arts classrooms, and the third floor consists mainly of visual arts classrooms, as well as a few history classrooms and a gallery.

In addition to the Wang Hall renovations, the Middle School converted two classrooms in Seaver Science Center into “maker spaces” called the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) room and the Incubator.

“We took a lot of our hands-on clubs and put them in this classroom called the STEAM room,” Wimbish said.

The Incubator is meant to be a designated place where science teachers can experiment with new labs that could be used in lessons.