• Healthy, energy-efficient, and environmentally friendly learning institutions have a positive impact on students, teachers, and the world at large.
• Sustainable school design can reduce carbon emissions, lower operating costs, and provide healthier indoor environments, higher attendance rates, and improved productivity.
• Daylighting, green building materials, and flexible design are just a few of the strategies used in sustainable school design.

K-12 schools spend approximately $8 billion annually on energy and emit an estimated 72 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of 18 coal-fired power plants per year, according to the DOE. How can school design reduce its carbon footprint?

Let’s consider the nature of sustainable school design. In this article we explore the benefits associated with green schools, investigate the most popular strategies and trends in eco-friendly school design, and explore 14 real-world examples of sustainable school architecture.

What is Sustainable School Design?

Annie E. Fales Elementary School is a sustainable school in Massachusetts that boasts net-positive carbon status, producing more power via renewable energy than it requires in a year’s time. Photo by Ed Wonsek

Sustainable school design may be described as a subset of the broader sustainable architecture movement—one that seeks to construct healthy, efficient, and ecologically friendly learning facilities whose operations have a positive impact on both people and the planet as a whole.

The USGBC’s Center for Green Schools defines a sustainable or green school as one that reduces environmental impacts and costs, improves occupants’ health and performance, and provides effective sustainability education. In practice sustainably designed schools achieve these goals by drastically limiting energy and water use, reducing waste production, protecting nearby natural habitats, minimizing exposure to VOCs and other toxins, maximizing natural light, and more.

Benefits of Sustainable School Design

While the initial benefits of sustainable school design—e.g. improved energy efficiency and fewer emissions—may seem obvious, there are also a plethora of lesser-known benefits that come with designing sustainable academic facilities.

Reduced Environmental Impact

To help reduce its overall environmental impact, the Thaden School utilizes renewable energy, employs natural landscaping techniques, grows a large portion of its own food, and composts its organic waste in a closed-loop system.

The main benefit of sustainable school design is that it helps to reduce the environmental impact of the buildings we learn and teach in—something that is undeniably necessary if we hope to stop or slow climate change.

Schools that implement sustainable design strategies tend to operate much more efficiently than conventional schools and, as a result, generate far fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Many schools also take steps to reduce their water usage, helping to conserve water and effectively mitigate excess stormwater runoff.

Lower Operating Costs

Canyon View High School operates 75% more efficiently than a traditional high school. Photo by Tom Reich

Schools that implement sustainable design strategies focused on reducing energy consumption—such as daylighting, natural ventilation, geothermal heating, higher levels of insulation, et cetera—predictably have lower operating costs than those designed to conventional building standards.

A 2006 report called “Greening America’s Schools: Costs and Benefits” found that green schools used 33% less energy and 32% less water than schools which did not feature sustainable features. Similarly, a more recent study of schools in Toronto found that LEED-certified schools had 28% lower operating costs compared to both conventional schools and even those that had undergone deep energy retrofits.

Healthier Indoor Environments

Designed by Equipo de Arquitectura, the Child Care Center in Paraguay is constructed from non-toxic, sustainable materials that are low in VOCs, making for a healthier learning environment. Photo by Federico Cairoli

Sustainably designed schools place a high priority on using green building materials, daylighting systems, solar-shading solutions, and high-efficiency ventilation systems. Altogether these strategies help ensure schools provide adequate air circulation, maintain stable humidity levels, and minimize the entry of dirt, dust, pollen, mold spores, or other small particulate matter that might otherwise cause or trigger respiratory illnesses and afflictions.

Higher Attendance & Teacher Retention Rates

Sustainable schools typically have lower levels of indoor air pollution and better ventilation than conventionally-designed schools, reducing the spread of germs and improving attendance rates. Photo by Kendall McCaugherty, Hall + Merrick Photographers

According to the CDC, students ranging between the ages of 5 and 17 miss an estimated 14 million school days each year due to asthma, and teachers have a much higher risk of developing asthmatic conditions than almost any other non-industrial worker group. This is often attributed to the fact that schools are among the worst offenders when it comes to effectively maintaining indoor humidity levels within the optimal range (30 to 50%), which in turn increases the amount of exposure to allergens, irritants, germs, and other airborne pollutants.

Schools that have been designed with sustainability in mind typically do a better job at maintaining that optimal humidity level and often make use of highly-efficient ventilation strategies that filter out or exhaust the bulk of pollutants before they are inhaled. This translates to higher attendance rates and reduces the risk of large-scale virus transmission amongst students.

Another benefit of sustainable school design is the effect it has on teacher retention rates. A report on the impact of green schools in Washington state found that implementing sustainable design strategies reduced teacher turnover rates by approximately 5%.

Improved Productivity & Test Scores

Schools that incorporate sustainable design strategies—such as daylighting—tend to have higher productivity rates and test scores. Photo by Albert Vecerka

Because schools that implement sustainable design strategies typically feature ample daylighting and improved indoor air quality—both of which are known to positively affect cognition—they also tend to have higher productivity rates and test scores.

A year-long study conducted by the Heschong Mahone Group in 1999, for example, collected data on the amount of daylight available in more than 2,000 classrooms across three school districts in California, Washington, and Colorado. In the California district the study found that students in extremely sunny classrooms advanced 26% faster in reading and 20% faster in math than students in daylight-deprived classrooms. In the Washington and Colorado districts ample exposure to natural light increased test scores between 7 and 18%.

Sustainable School Design Principles & Trends

Sustainable school design trends tend to align with the overarching principles associated with sustainable architecture as a whole. Some of the most popular include:

Daylighting

Solatube’s work at Flora Arca Mata Elementary allows for future design flexibility. Photo courtesy of American Modular Systems

Perhaps the most prolific and popular trend in sustainable school design, daylighting—or the intentional use of light-admitting devices to illuminate an interior space via natural sunlight—is more than just a means of saving energy. It also improves student mental health and well-being.

Receiving adequate sunlight throughout the day is crucial to maintaining the body’s circadian rhythm—or the internal clock that helps control and regulate various bodily functions and systems. “By exposing your body to daylight throughout the day, your healthy human circadian rhythm will have a significant role in regulating your sleep-wake cycle and have a positive impact on your eating habits and digestion, body temperature, hormone release, and other important bodily functions,” Neall Digert, vice president of innovation and market development at Kingspan Light + Air, wrote in a previous gb&dPRO article.

Students who learn in sunny classrooms have been observed to be more attentive, are capable of concentrating better and for longer periods of time, and generally learn more efficiently than students in artificially lit classrooms.

Energy-Efficient Windows

Many schools have large windows throughout their campuses to let in as much light as possible, but the most sustainable schools install windows that aren’t just large, but energy-efficient. This helps prevent a significant amount of energy waste, as the DOE estimates anywhere from 25% to 30% of a building’s heating and cooling energy is lost through its windows. There are two main characteristics that improve a window’s energy efficiency: increasing the number of panes and the use of a low-emissivity coating or film.

Increasing the number of panes in a window helps improve its overall insulative quality, with most energy-efficient windows containing two or three panes of glass. An inert gas such as argon or krypton fills the space between each pane, reducing the amount of heat transferred through the glass itself. To protect against UV rays and prevent unwanted solar heat gain, a low-emissivity coating is then applied to the glass, reflecting solar energy without compromising natural daylight admittance.

Energy-efficient windows also help to improve concentration in the classroom, as double- and triple-paned windows provide better outside noise reduction than traditional single-pane windows.

Skylights & Light Tubes

Skylights and light tubes are two other daylighting solutions often employed in school buildings that allow for greater admittance of sunlight throughout the day. The Flora Arca Mata Elementary School in Stockton, California, for example, made extensive use of Solatube’s SolaMaster Series 750 DS tubular daylighting systems in order to work around design constraints that would not have allowed the placement of large windows found in most schools.

These light tubes collect sunlight from the rooftop and funnel it through highly reflective tubes into the classrooms below, providing consistent illumination throughout the day. In this manner, students are still able to receive the positive cognitive and psychological benefits of sunlight without requiring the installation of large windows. Solatube also provided Daylight Dimmers for each system installed, giving teachers the ability to easily adjust classroom daylight levels.

Solar Shading

Strategically sized roof overhangs provide shade and reduce energy consumption at the Wintringham Primary Academy in England. Photo by Hufton+Crow Photography

A key component of passive solar design, solar shading refers to those features used to optimize the amount of solar heat that enters a building. Effective solar shading devices serve to block solar heat gain during the hottest months of the year (to prevent overheating) while still allowing sunlight to enter during the coldest months in order to exploit its thermal properties.

The Wintringham Primary Academy in St. Neots, England is prime example of effective solar shading in action. The dRMM–designed academy uses passive solar shading and a wider overhang on the school’s south-facing side than its north side. This feature helps block excess solar heat gain from the high-angled summer sun while still allowing solar energy to enter during the winter for passive heating.

Improved Ventilation

The Child Care Center’s glass walls may be slid open to facilitate natural ventilation, blurring the line between indoor and outdoor space. Photo by Federico Cairoli

Technologies to improve ventilation, air circulation, and indoor air quality are often overlooked in sustainable school design.

Natural Ventilation

Mechanical HVAC systems can help circulate air throughout a building, but they don’t always do a great job of expelling pollutants, and they often create stale indoor environments. Natural ventilation systems, on the other hand, pull in fresh air, circulate said air, and then remove that air in a continuous cycle driven by the volumetric pressure differences caused by either wind or buoyancy.

Studies have shown that breathing in fresh air helps improve oxygen flow to the brain, which in turn promotes enhanced cognitive function, memory retention, and concentration—all of which are conducive to a productive learning environment.

Heat & Energy Recovery Technology

Natural ventilation isn’t always possible—especially for schools located in dense urban areas with higher concentrations of outdoor air pollutants. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to sustainably improve ventilation and indoor air quality. High-efficiency HVAC systems, for example, may be outfitted with either heat or energy recovery capabilities.

Heat recovery ventilation (HRV) and energy recovery ventilation (ERV) systems are incredibly efficient and are typically capable of recovering at least 75% of the heat from incoming or outgoing air. A ventilation system with balanced heat recovery ensures that a building always receives plentiful, nearly room temperature fresh air year-round, making for a much more comfortable indoor environment and drastically improving indoor air quality.

Use of Nontoxic & Low-VOC Materials

Designed by VMPDE, the IBOBI Super School is in Dachong, the tech hub of Shenzhen. Photo by ZC Studio

Sustainable school design also places a high priority on using non-toxic, low-VOC materials and products in place of mass-produced, non-renewable building materials. These materials tend to have lower embodied carbon, create fewer GHG emissions during their procurement, processing, and manufacturing, and do not leach as many harmful chemicals or compounds into the air over time.

To ensure the environment is as healthy and student-friendly as possible, many sustainably designed schools take care to prioritize materials and products bearing the Red List–free label. The International Living Future Institute’s Red List is a comprehensive guide to the “worst in class” chemicals, materials, and elements known to cause serious harm to human and ecosystem health. Red List–free products fully disclose 100% of their ingredients at or above 100ppm in the final product and do not contain any chemicals on the Red List.

Offsite Prefabrication

The Henderson-Hopkins School in Maryland makes use of precast concrete in its buildings’ exterior cladding systems. Photo by Albert Vecerka/Esto

Offsite prefabrication, or the preconstruction of certain building components that are then transported to, and assembled at, the job site, is another trend. Prefabrication reduces onsite construction times, improves a building’s overall energy efficiency, and the highly controlled and closed environment makes for a tighter envelope with fewer gaps for air to leak from.

Entire rooms or modules can be prefabricated off-site, but the most common occurrence of prefabrication technology in sustainable school design is the use of precast concrete panels and slabs. The Henderson-Hopkins School in Baltimore, for example, uses grooved precast concrete exterior cladding to mimic the “form-stone” commonly found throughout the city’s architecture.

Renewable Energy Integration

King Open/Cambridge Street Upper Schools & Community Complex utilize both solar and geothermal power to supply energy for heating, cooling, and ventilation. Photo courtesy of William Rawn Associates

Integrating renewable energy sources into educational facilities is a growing trend, especially when it comes to solar power. This is largely because many schools are constructed in open areas that receive little-to-no shade throughout the day—conditions that are ideal for the installation of rooftop solar panels or photovoltaic arrays.

Geothermal heating and cooling is another form of renewable energy that is slowly becoming more and more commonplace within the field of sustainable school design, as evidenced by the King Open/Cambridge Street Upper Schools in Chicago, which utilize a total of 190 closed-loop geothermal wells to supply radiant heating, cooling, and displaced ventilation to their classrooms. Kate Bubriski, director of sustainability and building performance at Arrowstreet—the firm that designed the school—told gb&d that they chose geothermal because “ground source heat pumps were the most efficient systems and have reliable maintenance and durability.”

Integrating renewable energies is also more-or-less a requirement for schools seeking to achieve Net Zero Emissions status and can help a school earn credits for LEED certification.

Flexible & Adaptable Floor Plans

The ENC Nature Preschool was designed by LPA for maximum flexibility, with large classrooms and movable furniture. Large sliding glass doors allow for classes to extend to the outdoors when needed, effectively doubling the room sizes. Photo by Cris Costea Photography

In anticipation of future growth and reconfiguration, many modern schools are designed with flexible, adaptable floor plans that allow for classrooms and communal spaces to be changed around without requiring a complete renovation. By designing for flexibility from the outset, schools are able to extend their lifespan and reduce the amount of construction waste generated over the building’s operational life cycle.

Canyon View High School in Arizona is one school that has taken measures to maximize classroom flexibility. Designed by the DLR Group, Canyon View is laid out as a series of customizable learning suites that can stand alone or be connected or and resized to suit a variety of settings. “These are highly flexible learning suites that have a variety of environments in them, so they’re not your not typical ‘cells and bells,’” Todd Ferking, principal at DLR Group, previously told gb&d. Flexible, dynamic learning spaces like these help to engage students and provide them with a real sense of place.

Flexible design is also exemplified by the ENC Nature Preschool in Newport Beach, whose classrooms are easily reconfigured and feature movable walls that allow indoor spaces to open up to the outdoors at a moments notice.

14 Examples of Sustainable School Design

Here are a few inspiring examples of sustainable school design from around the world.

1. Annie E. Fales Elementary School, Westborough, MA

The Annie E. Fales Elementary School in Massachusetts uses solar and geothermal power to produce more energy than it uses annually. Photo by Ed Wonsek

As the first net-positive energy public school in New England, the Annie E. Fales Elementary School blends sustainable and educational design to foster a sense of environmental and social responsibility in young students from an early age.

Designed by HMFH Architects, the Annie E. Fales Elementary School earned net-positive status by employing a rooftop photovoltaic solar grid and 40 geothermal wells to generate its power. HFMH chose to install a sawtooth roof in order to maximize surface area for the school’s south-facing PV panels and increase their efficiency. These renewable energy systems allow Fales to produce 11.6% more energy than it needs.

Fales’ interior learning areas are organized into four project areas, each of which are centered around different landscapes found in Massachusetts: forest, meadow, marshland, and pond. Each area corresponds to a specific grade level and boasts a unique, biome-specific color palette as well as storybook-style murals.

“The murals help get the students excited about where they live, wanting to get out and explore as well,” Caitlin Osepchuk, project architect and associate at HMFH Architects, told gb&d in a previous article. “And foster that love of the environment so they’ll continue to make positive sustainable choices in the future to help maintain the ecosystems they live in.”

2. Thaden School, Bentonville, AR

Thaden School sits on a 26-acre site in Arkansas. Here, the Home Building is seen in the rear of campus. Photo by Tim Hursley

Owned and operated by the Walton Family Foundation, the Thaden School is an independent middle and high school in Arkansas that stands out thanks to its extensive implementation of green building strategies and unique curriculum. The campus includes seven buildings and was designed by EskewDumezRipple in collaboration with Marlon Blackwell Architects.

The Home Building is one of the school’s most impressive structures, with a state-of-the-art teaching kitchen and dining hall. It’s a hub for “learning by doing,” a principle that defines the school’s approach to education. At the building’s rear an ever-present water-lab collects a large portion of onsite rainwater and serves as a teaching opportunity for showcasing certain biological processes.

The adjacent landscape is also an expertly crafted learning opportunity. Designed for minimal maintenance while encouraging biodiverse plant life, the grounds around the Home Building are home to native ecosystems as well as orchards, planter boxes, and fruit and vegetable fields. These crops are harvested by students and then cooked and prepared in the dining hall for student meals. All organic waste is returned to the soil as compost fertilizer, creating one giant closed-loop system.

In the quad field next to the Home Building a geothermal well field acts as a giant battery and further helps to reduce overall energy costs. “The Home Building was designed to achieve an EUI of 23 or less. The baseline EUI for a typical high school building as defined by ASHRAE is 74 kBTU/sf*yr,” Christian Rodriguez, principal at EskewDumezRipple, wrote in a previous gb&d article. “This means the Home Building was designed to be approximately 70% more efficient than similar schools.”

Schools with an EUI of 25 or less are commonly considered to be zero energy ready—and with plans to add a rooftop photovoltaic solar array in the future, the Home Building is well on its way to achieving net-zero status.

3. P.S. 19X, New York City

Colorful window surrounds on the exterior exude a playful atmosphere at P.S. 19X, also known as The Judith K. Weiss Woodlawn School in the Bronx. Photo by Albert Vecerka

Designed by RKTB to LEED Gold standards, P.S. 19X is an addition to the existing Judith K. Woodlawn School that significantly improved the entire campus’ sustainability. The extension created capacity for 200 more students and added new administrative buildings, a double-height gymnasium, combined cafeteria and auditorium, and a new street-level entrance with an inviting, and an open lobby complete with elevators to ensure accessibility.

One of the things that RKTB prioritized when designing R.S. 19X was improving the school’s energy efficiency. “The backbone of sustainable construction is energy efficiency, and we employed systems and materials that help to reduce overall energy costs by more than 30% compared to the Green Schools Guide baseline,” Nelya Sachakova, an associate at RKTB, wrote in a previous gb&d article. “To relieve pressure on the HVAC system, we used R-15 insulation in the above-grade wall assemblies and R-10 in those below grade; roof construction included R-30 insulation under a performative cool roof that helps reduce heat gain.”

An incredibly airtight building envelope, daylight harvesters, lighting occupancy sensors, and a state-of-the-art building management system help to further reduce the school’s energy consumption. P.S. 19X also sources over 35% of its electricity from renewable energy sources, though it does not feature any on-site renewables itself.

P.S. 19X is also incredibly efficient when it comes to water usage. Low-flow fixtures and high-efficiency plumbing reduced the school’s water requirements by more than 30% above the Green Schools Guide baseline. Outdoor spaces were landscaped using a native bunchgrass that requires minimal maintenance and no permanent irrigation, effectively reducing the school’s landscaping water requirements to near zero.

RKTB also renovated the existing building, replacing all of the outdated administrative and assembly spaces with modern classrooms featuring ample daylighting and operable windows, as well as updated technology, materials, finishes, and systems.

4. Wintringham Primary Academy, St. Neots, England

A cross-laminated timber school building, designed by dRMM Architects, allows students to learn and play indoors and out. Photo by Hufton+Crow Photography

The dRMM-designed Wintringham Primary Academy is organized as two stacked floors of classrooms surrounding an inner landscaped courtyard, known as the grove—a layout that quite literally puts nature at the heart of the school’s design. “It’s quite radical and progressive, but it’s also looking back to 19th century models of schools,” Philip Marsh, a founding director at dRMM, previously told gb&d.

Encompassing roughly 32,464 square feet, the unique configuration of Wintringham Primary Academy allows natural sunlight to flood the entire building while also making natural cross-ventilation possible, greatly reducing the need for artificial lighting and mechanical ventilation. An energy-efficient building envelope and strategic solar shading features also help reduce the school’s heating and cooling loads.

To reduce the school’s overall environmental impact even further, Wintringham Primary Academy was constructed primarily from cross-laminated timber (CLT), a type of structural engineered wood product with a load-bearing capacity similar to that of concrete or steel, but much lighter and significantly more sustainable. The school’s use of CLT effectively sequesters 166 metric tons of carbon, giving it just 49% of the carbon impact of a conventional school.

Much of the CLT was intentionally left exposed by the design team, in part to reduce the need for additional building materials but also to provide a natural warmth and reinforce the school’s connection to the natural world. A flexible, easily re-configured floor plan was implemented throughout the building to allow the school to adapt and evolve to future needs without necessitating a complete renovation.

Landscaped green spaces—including play areas, sports fields, and even nature trails—are positioned around the school, along with four acres of wildflower meadows and amenity grassland. Native grasses, perennials, shrubs, and trees were planted in order to attract a variety of crucial bird and insect species as well as reintroduce biodiversity to the area.

5. IBOBI Super School, Shenzhen, China

IBOBI Super School is located on the terrace of the second floor of a mall—one of few places in the area with large outdoor space. The outdoor terrace and the indoor space are well connected, forming an enclosed site. Photo by ZC Studio

Designed by VMDPE, the IBOBI Super School is a comprehensive kindergarten that provides a safe, healthy, and sustainable space for children to learn and play in a dense city with little green space.

On the second floor of a mall, the IBOBI Super School’s most impressive feature is its large outdoor terrace area, designed to be as flexible as possible and accommodate a range of activities. “Our key design elements are the redefinition of outdoor functionality, creating not only spaces for sports but also social interaction areas, hand-craft activities, outdoor STEAM courses, and greenhouse functionalities,” Vinci Chen, VMDPE’s team design director, previously told gb&d.

Large windows and a series of porches blur the division between indoor and outdoor spaces, allowing students and educators to enter and exit adjoining spaces freely regardless of weather conditions. Sustainable, child-safe materials—including vinyl flooring, stainless steel paint, EO grade environmental protection boards, water-based paint boards, and more—were used to construct both the interior and outdoor spaces.

Building constraints and IBOBI’s elevated location limited the amount of vegetation it could reasonably support, although the VMDPE design team did its best to incorporate greenery where possible, selecting a variety of Chinese silver grass as the main species.

6. Canyon View High School, Waddell, AZ

The exterior of Canyon View High School in Arizona, designed by DLR Group. Photo by Bill Timmerman

DLR Group designed Canyon View High School with a series of indoor and outdoor teaching spaces. These sustainable spaces include student dining, a learning stair, an athletic training corridor, outdoor project rooms, a maker space, broadcasting studio, theaters, and more.

All of the school’s interior spaces are daylit and glare-free, with large windows and skylights to reduce the need for artificial lighting. A geothermal ground-source heat pump supplies the school’s radiant floors with heat. Canyon View High School generates up to 20% of its own power using a 250 KW solar array.

One of the buildings on-campus also uses a BioPCM® ENRG Blanket® from Phase Change Solutions, which may be tuned to enable active heat absorption in the summer and release stored heat in the winter, reducing heating and cooling loads throughout the year. The school operates 75% more efficiently than a traditional high school located within the same climate.

7. Great Lakes Academy Charter School, Chicago

Originally a worship space, the first floor of Great Lakes Academy was converted to a combined cafeteria and gymnasium. Photo by Kendall McCaugherty, Hall + Merrick Photographers

Originally a campus owned and operated by the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Great Lakes Academy (GLA) Charter School is an inspiring example of adaptive reuse.

The Wheeler Kearns Architects—designed school occupies almost an entire city block in South Chicago, but that wasn’t always the case. When it first opened in 2014 GLA was simply a three-story brick building circa 1911, with two floors of classrooms and a cafeteria / gymnasium. Anticipating future expansion, Wheeler Kearns initially intended to construct a 30,000-square-foot building across the street, but GLA decided it made greater financial sense to acquire the entire campus and renovate the existing church, originally built in 1952.

“The former church building’s size, layout, and orientation were remarkably well-suited for the school’s program,” Emily Ray, a project architect with Wheeler Kearns Architects, previously wrote for gb&d. “A regulation middle school basketball court fits perfectly in the transept, and half of the student body can comfortably fit in the nave during each of two lunch periods. The team transformed the raised altar into a multipurpose performance stage and unique transverse climbing wall.”

A 4,000-square-foot lobby connects the two buildings and represents the only new construction on the site. Two other buildings—both in poor condition—were demolished to make room for a new turf field that helps divert stormwater and reduce groundwater runoff.

Repurposing these existing buildings was just the first step in improving the campus’ overall sustainability. To reduce the school’s energy consumption, the design team utilized variable refrigerant flow units and energy recovery technology to efficiently heat, cool, and ventilate the building, while thermally broken curtain-wall framing, skylights, and large windows drastically limit the need for artificial lighting. A native planted green roof was also installed to provide passive cooling, mitigate runoff, and reintroduce biodiversity to the site.

8. The Child Care Center, Villeta, Paraguay

Classroom walls open to green courtyard spaces. “We intended to make the experience of the place feel very comfortable and connected to nature,” says Horacio Cherniavsky of Equipo de Arquitectura. Photo by Federico Cairoli

Serving as both school and daycare, this center in Paraguay aims to encourage independent sensory learning and connect children with the natural world from a young age via biophilic design elements.

“We wanted children to be in contact with nature and natural materials at all times,” Horacio Cherniavsky, a founding member of Equipo de Arquitectura, told gb&d in a previous article. “We did not want to create the typical classroom where you feel you are inside a closed space.”

Designed by Equipo de Arquitectura the Child Care Center encompasses two classrooms, a dining room, and an administrative area, each of which is open to the outdoors on two sides. This design allows sunlight and fresh air to move through the classrooms, greatly reducing the need for mechanical heating and cooling, ventilation, and artificial lighting. During inclement weather, sliding glass walls may be drawn across these openings, offering protection without obscuring views of the surrounding landscape.

The walls are made primarily from rammed earth and are incredibly resilient—grounding the building within the environment while creating diverse colors, textures, and even smells that enrich the occupant experience. “It’s a sensory type of learning,” Cherniavsky says. “The experience of the space is what helps the child learn from his or her senses.”

Indoor plants, courtyard gardens, and green rooftops further reinforce the center’s commitment toward sensory learning, with the latter also helping to mitigate stormwater runoff and passively regulate interior temperatures.

9. Federal Way High School, Federal Way, WA

Federal Way High School, Washington. Photo by Benjamin Benschneider

The SRG Partnership-designed Federal Way High School is an inspiring example of sustainable school design that prioritizes the wants and needs of the students themselves while also balancing the concerns of the township at large.

To ensure the new school met the community’s needs and honored the site’s legacy as the location of Federal Way’s first school system, SRG Partnership conducted a range of forums to give people from all backgrounds voice in the design process.

“The vision for Federal Way High School was to honor the school’s heritage while celebrating its present and creating opportunities for growth into the future,” Ingrid Krueger, senior associate at SRG Partnership, previously wrote for gb&d. “The greatest hope for the school is that what exists now will inspire new generations of teachers, staff, and students to create their own stories, a renewed history, and a new place of pride in their community.”

Federal Way High School is separated into two halves—one half houses the auditorium, activity rooms, and gymnasiums while the other is almost entirely dedicated to classroom space. Connecting the two halves is a network of communal spaces that allow students to connect with one another or find solitude without being wholly isolated from their peers.

Ample daylighting solutions flood the school with natural sunlight and strategically located structural elements ensure that the classrooms and communal spaces may be reconfigured in the future if necessary. Ballfields, walking paths, and a storm pond habitat serve to further connect the school to the community, opening it up to the public rather than isolating it behind physical barriers.

10. The ENC Nature Preschool, Newport Beach, CA

The ENC Nature Preschool, designed by LPA Design Studios, was the region’s first LEED Platinum building. Photo courtesy of LPA

LPA Design Studios designed the ENC Nature Preschool (ENC) in Newport Beach as the first LEED Platinum building in the region.

The ENC Nature Preschool is also a net-positive building—generating 60% more energy than it uses. The ENC’s 8,000-square-foot, three-classroom preschool also operates at a net-positive, with renewable energy producing 105% of the school’s power. This is achieved through the use of a well-integrated array of photovoltaic solar panels and innovative energy-reduction strategies.

Passive design techniques like natural ventilation and optimized building orientation—angled to take full advantage of ocean breezes—help regulate interior temperatures without excessive reliance on mechanical HVAC use, whereas the facility’s large windows and butterfly roof allow for ample daylighting that reduces the need for artificial lighting.

“We researched historical climate data, which made it clear the site was ideally suited for a naturally ventilated building,” Rick D’Amato, design director at LPA, previously told gb&d. “We were able to eliminate the need for mechanical ventilation with operable windows, large sliding glass doors, and efficient ceiling fans to enhance air movement.”

The pitch of the school’s butterfly roof also serves to direct rainwater into a series of rock basins and bioswales for effective stormwater mitigation.

11. Montgomery Middle School, Chula Vista, CA

Montgomery Middle School. Photo courtesy of LPA Design Studio

Originally built in the 1970s, the Montgomery Middle School in Chula Vista underwent an extensive expansion in 2015 to address existing water damage and accommodate a growing population. LPA designed this 37,500-square-foot addition to LEED Platinum and net zero energy standards, with a 217-kW photovoltaic system on the roof.

To reduce energy consumption LPA oriented the school on an east-west axis, reducing the amount of harsh exposure from the south, which in turn reduces solar heat gain and the need for mechanical air conditioning. Each classroom has its own high-efficiency HVAC unit linked to the campus’ energy management system.

Montgomery Middle School also features an innovative stormwater management system. Because of the school’s geographic location runoff quickly ends up in the ocean, meaning a stormwater treatment system was a must. LPA’s solution was to include a bioswale—or a channel that naturally slows and filters water before redirecting it elsewhere.

Other sustainable features include natural landscaping with drought-tolerant plants, light-colored surfaces to combat the urban heat island effect, energy-efficient lighting systems, light shelves that reflect light deeper into the building, and low-flow bathroom fixtures to conserve water.

12. Henderson-Hopkins School, Baltimore

Designed by ROGERS PARTNERS Architects+Urban Designers, The Henderson-Hopkins School opened in Baltimore in 2014. Photo courtesy of Albert Vecerka/Esto

The Henderson-Hopkins School in Baltimore is a safe, healthy, and sustainable development project designed to bring both educational facilities and community services under the same roof. The school is part of revitalization efforts spearheaded by East Baltimore Development and was one of the first projects in the Baltimore City Green Building Standards Program when it was completed in 2014.

The school accommodates children from 6 weeks old through 8th grade and serves as a family resource center that provides everything from health access to housing services. An auditorium, gym, and library are also housed on campus and are open to the public throughout the day.

ROGERS PARTNERS designed the campus as a microcosm of the city itself, with the school broken up into small-scale buildings—bisected by main streets and side streets—designed to serve two grades at a time. Each building features a flexible floor plan and includes an exterior classroom for students to learn in. “Having space that is set up from day one as an exterior learning space—I think that’s something we’re going to see more of,” Vincent Lee, an associate at ROGERS PARTNERS Architects+Urban Designers, previously told gb&d.

Almost 100% of the campus’ occupied spaces receive ample natural lighting, with 275 windows, 40 skylights, and a translucent daylighting system helping the school meet LEED daylighting requirements, drastically reducing the need for artificial lighting. Insulated precast concrete panels were used to construct each building’s envelope, greatly improving energy efficiency and reducing mechanical HVAC loads.

13. King Open/Cambridge Street Upper Schools & Community Complex, Cambridge, MA

Arrowstreet and William Rawn Associates chose geothermal heating to work alongside photovoltaics to power the King Open/Cambridge Street Upper Schools & Community Complex. Courtesy of William Rawn Associates

Encompassing King Open Elementary and Cambridge Street Upper School, administrative offices, a library, and even a public pool, the King Open/Cambridge Street Upper Schools & Community Complex in Cambridge, Massachusetts is the state’s first Net Zero Emissions and LEED Platinum-certified school campus

Arrowstreet and William Rawn Associates designed the King Open/Cambridge Street Upper Schools & Community Complex to achieve net zero status by leveraging geothermal and solar energy. The building uses 43% less energy than a typical school in Massachusetts and 70% less energy than the average school in the United States.

The campus features 190 closed-loop, 500-foot-deep geothermal wells that supply radiant heating and cooling to each building, as well as the air handling units supporting the project’s displacement ventilation system. A grid of approximately 36,000 facade and roof-mounted photovoltaic panels generate a large portion of the school’s electricity.

“The technologies needed to design the building to net zero, including geothermal wells and photovoltaics, were less than a 1% increase in construction cost,” Kate Bubriski, director of sustainability and building performance at Arrowstreet, told gb&d in a previous article. “The significant operational savings from the low energy building and onsite photovoltaics make the return on capital investment fairly immediate.”

King Open/Cambridge Street Upper Schools & Community Complex also isn’t lacking when it comes to water conservation. Rain gardens, bioswales, and an innovative water reuse system help the project effectively mitigate stormwater runoff while also reducing total on-site water use requirements.

14. Mark Day School, San Rafael, CA

The Mark Day School’s new Learning Commons, Creativity Lab, and Administration Building achieved LEED Platinum certification. Photo courtesy of EHDD

Originally built in the 1960s, the Mark Day School undertook a capital campaign in 2015 and 2016 to fund the demolition and reconstruction of the existing Administration Building, commissioning local architectural firm EHDD for the project.

EHDD started by demolishing the existing single-story structure and constructing a two-story building in its place, one that housed not only Administrative offices but also a new Learning Commons (library) and Creativity Lab. The school’s existing central outdoor quad also received improvements, including the reorienting of the amphitheater and addition of new seating areas to foster a greater sense of community during weekly all-school meetings.

Like many modern educational facilities, the new building was designed with flexibility in mind—all of the tables are movable, walls slide, and the entire building itself is clear span, giving school administration the ability to reconfigure the space in the future if necessary.

EHDD emphasized daylighting solutions, solar shading strategies, high-quality insulation, and a highly efficient heat pump as part of its sustainable design strategy. A rooftop solar array supplies the Mark Day School with almost twice the amount of electricity the new building uses on an annual basis.

Stormwater is also collected from the roof and funneled through visible infrastructure into rain gardens in the courtyard, while bioswales help disperse ground-level runoff and encourage biodiverse habitat growth. All in all, these improvements helped the new building earn LEED Platinum.

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• Cushing Terrell combines historical preservation and environmental stewardship in the Montana State University Romney Hall renovation.
• The LEED Gold project transformed a space from 141 classroom seats to a building with 1,010 seats.
• Post renovation, Romney Hall is one of the most utilized buildings on campus.

There’s a thoughtful balance to maintain when modernizing historic buildings. We must honor the past, a building’s architectural style, its prior uses, and the stories of the people who’ve passed through its doors and experienced life within its walls. Then there’s the need to optimize the space and repurpose it for contemporary uses and the experiences and stories of new generations.

With the renovation of Montana State University’s (MSU) Romney Hall—a beloved, century-old icon on the university’s campus in Bozeman—we brought all the talents of our multidisciplinary team at Cushing Terrell to the task, including many people who themselves spent formative years at MSU.

A Little History

Photo by Karl Neumann

Our big priorities for the project were to make the building fully accessible, incorporate life-safety upgrades, optimize energy efficiency, apply sustainable design principals, maintain elements of the building’s Italian Renaissance Revival style, ensure a connection to history, and add at least 1,000 classroom seats.

Romney Hall was built in 1921 and 1922 as a physical education building. Named after George Ottinger “Ott” Romney, MSU’s head football and basketball coach from 1922 to 1927, the building comprised handball courts, a running track, a swimming pool, and a gymnasium that could seat up to 3,000 spectators.

In the 1960s and ’70s the university built new athletic facilities and Romney was no longer a hub for activity. With most of the space in the 54,000-square-foot building unusable for teaching and learning, it had become obsolete in terms of present-day functionality but was ripe for reinvention.

As the largest and fastest-growing university in Montana, MSU knew it needed to renovate Romney Hall to fully utilize its square footage and add much-needed classroom space; however, there was a major hurdle to overcome.

Making Up for Lost Time

One of the challenges we faced with this project was the time it took for the Montana State Legislature to approve funding. We waited through four legislative sessions, each time anticipating the need to reconvene the design team. We interviewed for the project in 2012, began programming and schematic design in 2015, picked up design development in 2017, and completed construction drawings in 2019 when funding for the project was finally passed.

During this lengthy timeframe team members became engaged on other projects, became available again, and then took on new projects. Our ability to ramp up when the good news came was made possible by having all our design disciplines “under one roof” and the strength and cohesion of our teams. When looking back on the number of team members who contributed at some point to this decade-long project, it’s quite extensive.

Demolition & Design

Turning a 100-year-old athletics building—with a large gymnasium and pool—into functional classroom space was not a task for the faint of heart. This beautiful, old building was complicated because of what it was originally built to accommodate. Having completed an upfront historic preservation and structural analysis of the building prior to being awarded the renovation contract helped our team prepare and plan for what we’d encounter.

With the timing of the funding the project had an early demolition package, thus we were designing while the building was demoed. This was quite beneficial, as the insights gained during this process helped inform our design decisions, including what we could reuse. More than half of Romney’s building resources were preserved and reused, including structural elements, enclosure materials, and permanently installed interior elements. More than 2,300 tons of construction waste were recycled and/or reused—ultimately diverted from the landfill.

As the design intent was to leave existing finishes exposed wherever possible, we used knowledge gained from the demolition to verify which areas were acceptable as they were and which needed additional treatment. We were also able to locate the mechanical/pipe chases that existed throughout the building and determine if they could be reused and coordinate pipe routing for new radiators.

During demolition we discovered each floor was a different height (to accommodate the athletic functions) with clay-tile interior partition walls where the poured concrete floor elevations varied from one side of the wall to the other. Thus the design called for stair landings to be adjusted, floors to be ground down with infill added, and sloped floor transitions to be incorporated to tie everything together as seamlessly as possible.

To overcome access issues caused by the varying floor levels, the interior circulation areas were completely removed, except for the north stair hall, which was retained as a character-defining feature. The narrow corridors, south stairs, and pool were all replaced with a new grade-level entry corridor that leads to the Veterans Support Center and Office of Disability Services.

To extend the life of the building for many generations, give all students access to all floors, and maximize classroom space, the Romney Hall renovation involved extensive structural alterations. Floor space added inside the historic structure placed new loads on the existing structural elements and required the strengthening of the foundation components, which also included seismic upgrades.

Accessible & Energy-Efficient

Photo by Karl Neumann

Creating accessibility for all and achieving optimal energy performance were two of the primary goals for the project. Because of the complexity of the interior spaces and the need to fully utilize those spaces as learning environments, our design team collaborated with the State Historic Preservation Office to come up with a sensitive solution to achieve the desired results.

The solution was to replace the existing stair tower on the south side of the building with a new stair/elevator core addition. The enclosure is made of aluminum curtain wall, which provides a high degree of transparency to reveal the historic brick wall while the elevator shaft is clad in dark-colored perforated metal panel, which captures solar-heated air. Using SolarWall technology this heated air is incorporated into the building’s HVAC system to reduce energy consumption and heating costs.

The building also benefits from a high-efficiency geothermal-energy system under the Romney Oval—an open space situated north of Romney Hall. The geothermal system will serve other nearby buildings as part of MSU’s campus-wide energy master plan being developed by Cushing Terrell’s Energy Services team and will be one of several energy districts on campus.

The SolarWall technology, HVAC system upgrades, building enclosure upgrades, and new, replica steel windows all contribute to improving the building’s energy performance by 40.9% compared with a baseline building designed to meet minimum code requirements.

Aligning with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Rehabilitation of Historic Buildings, the new stair/elevator addition differentiates from the historic structure while ensuring historic materials and features are still seen and celebrated. The addition also serves as a teaching tool, along with the other systems and solutions implemented at Romney Hall. Educational tours for architectural and engineering students and other interested groups have been a regular part of the project, and they continue today.

Carving Out More Space

A variety of different-sized classrooms, collaboration, and study areas were designed throughout the building. The Mathematics and Statistic Center includes breakout spaces outside the center. Photo by Karl Neumann

Photo by Karl Neumann

The renovation and repurposing of Romney Hall not only preserved a state historic treasure but also provided much-needed upgrades to accommodate the expansion of student services and meet educational and accessibility needs.

The result was the creation of 17 new classrooms, student-focused collaboration and study areas, and space for high-impact programs like the Travis W. Atkins Veteran Support Center, the Office of Disability Services, the Writing Center, and the Dr. Christopher B. Lofgren Center for Excellence in Mathematics and Statistics Center.

Accessible restrooms, family care facilities, and single-use toilet rooms are now available on each level, and the building is comfortable and efficient with new mechanical, electrical, and fire suppression systems.

Additional breakout spaces and study areas along a stairway/hall corridor to optimize the space. Post renovation, Romney Hall is one of the most utilized buildings on campus.

Overall Romney Hall was transformed from a building with 141 classroom seats to a building with 1,010 seats. Where did all the new classroom space come from?

New floors were inserted above existing spaces on the third floor to provide approximately 13,000 square feet of additional area for classrooms and student study space. New, usable space was also created at what is called “level zero” through selective excavation that lowered the floor to provide the required headroom in new 100-seat classrooms.

Additionally our team was able to meet the 1,000-plus-seat goal by designing various classroom types that range from 24-seat instructional rooms to a 300-person lecture hall, or “classroom in the round,” that showcases a section of the former gym floor.

Preserving History

One of the things we took great joy in was repurposing the historic materials and features for other things.

For example, marble wall panels were used as decorative elements, now displayed along the staircase, and were even repurposed as shower stalls.

The original terrazzo floors in the north stair were cleaned and restored while complimentary terrazzo tile was installed in high-traffic areas.

The original gymnasium balcony suspension rods and hardware at level four were left exposed, serving as a memory of past athletic events, and inspiring the detailed metal components for the new grade-level walkway, stairs, guardrails, and other interior elements.

Design for the Future

Glimpses of the past, like the gym floor, align with the goal of honoring Romney Hall’s history and celebrating the building’s evolution. Photo by Karl Neumann

Romney Hall is also well-positioned for the future, not only in terms of the classroom space and student services it provides but also as a cornerstone of MSU’s campus energy district development. Romney Hall and the geothermal field under Romney Oval will connect to future buildings on the Grant Street corridor. This energy district will further reduce campus carbon emissions and provide opportunities for buildings on campus to share energy.

Like other great universities, MSU’s forward-thinking commitments ensure its actions benefit the students of today and tomorrow. This means being a good caretaker of the past and the future, providing best-in-class student services and learning environments, and building on MSU’s legacy.

Sustainable Design Achievements

Additional breakout spaces and study areas along a stairway/hall corridor optimize the space at MSU’s Romney Hall. Photo by Karl Neumann

While there’s much to celebrate about Romney Hall, these are the project’s most notable sustainability achievements:

Campus-wide Commitment. The ninth LEED building on the MSU campus, Romney Hall achieved LEED Gold and further demonstrates the university’s commitment to sustainability.

Building and Material Reuse. Nearly 55% of Romney Hall’s existing building resources were preserved and reused including structural elements, enclosure materials, and interior elements.

Energy Performance Optimizations. Guided by computer-based energy modeling simulations, the renovation improved the building’s energy performance by 40.9% compared to a building designed to meet minimum code requirements.

Commissioning. To verify that the project’s energy-related systems were installed, calibrated, and performed according to MSU’s high-performance building standards, the mechanical, electrical, hot water, and geothermal systems underwent a systematic quality-focused commissioning process.

Water Use Reduction. Through the installation of water-efficient fixtures, Romney Hall is expected to achieve a 33% indoor water use reduction compared to a baseline building designed without water efficient fixtures.
Outdoor Air Delivery Monitoring. Permanent carbon dioxide monitoring systems were installed to track CO2 levels while allowing MSU facilities teams to ensure adequate outdoor air ventilation rates are maintained.

Acoustic Performance. To promote acoustic comfort and provide learning environments that facilitate effective communications and occupant well-being, the design includes materials and features to limit background noise and the transmission of noise between spaces.

Controllable Lighting Systems. Throughout the building newly installed controls provide a high level of lighting-system control, helping enhance productivity, comfort, and well-being.

Low-Emitting Materials. To promote a healthy indoor environment, the following measures were achieved: 100% of paints, coatings, adhesives, and sealants used on the interior of the building met the standards for low-emitting materials; 100% of installed flooring-system products met the testing and product requirements for low-emitting flooring materials; and 100% of composite wood/agrifiber products used on the interior of the building do not contain added urea-formaldehyde resins.

Recycled Content. More than 25% of the total materials budget was invested in products with environmentally and socially preferable life cycle impacts, including sustainable forestry practices, products containing pre- and post-consumer recycled content, and products purchased from manufacturers who participate in take-back recycling programs that minimize material waste.

Environmental Product Declarations. Forty-two products with EPDs were installed. This earned Romney Hall an exemplary performance status for the sourcing of products and materials from manufacturers who have verified improved environmental life cycle impacts of their products.

Material Ingredients. Thirty-eight products with transparent disclosure of material ingredients were installed. This achievement exceeded the baseline requirement of 20 products and helps promote products and materials that evaluate and disclose human and environmental health impacts.

Construction Indoor Air Quality Management Plan. During construction an indoor air quality management plan was enforced to protect HVAC equipment, absorptive materials, and prioritize regular maintenance of the building to reduce indoor air contaminants.

Construction Waste Management. Throughout construction a total of 2,319 tons or 78.28% of all construction waste were recycled and/or reused and ultimately diverted from the landfill.

Project Details

Project: Romney Hall, Montana State University
Location: Bozeman, MT
Completion: 2022
Size: 54,000 square feet
Architects: Cushing Terrell, SRG Partnership
Contractor: Swank Enterprises
Engineer: Cushing Terrell
Interior Design, Lighting & Landscape: Cushing Terrell
Energy Modeling & Envelope: Cushing Terrell
Theatrical/AV: TEECOM
Acoustical Engineer: Big Sky Acoustics
Geothermal Consultant: Major Geotherma
Awards: LEED Gold

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Bunker-like. That’s how people used to describe the 1970s inward-facing Johnson Building, an addition to the Boston Public Library (BPL), which itself dates back to 1895. But not anymore. The beautifully renovated second wing is flooded with natural light and packed with people who come together to read, study, or even just socialize.

The renovation by William Rawn Associates is a stunning example of what green libraries should be, as it connects a vital public building with the community just outside its doors. A light-filled space spills out into a new public plaza, complete with Wi-Fi and outdoor seating on one of Boston’s liveliest thoroughfares.

State-of-the-Art Amenities

Photo by Robert Benson Photography

“This project creates a new civic idea for public libraries—with a heightened sense of being open, welcoming, and seamlessly connected to the city streets,” says Cliff Gayley, principal architect on the project.

There’s a state-of-the-art lecture hall, a business library and innovation center, a new children’s library and teen area, a high-tech community learning center, and more.

Gayley’s favorite feature, though, is Boylston Hall—or what he calls “the big urban room.” It’s a new idea for libraries, and one he hopes will continue to catch on. It’s the area with the newest books, an inviting cafe, and even a streetside broadcast studio from Boston’s public radio station, WGBH.

“It’s the place where the library and the city overlap, and where visitors are immediately surrounded by the library’s most active uses,” he says.

Opening Up the Library

Photo courtesy of William Rawn Associates

Photo courtesy of William Rawn Associates

Photo courtesy of William Rawn Associates

Photo courtesy of William Rawn Associates

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• The two-level school in Westborough, Massachusetts serves students in kindergarten through third grade.
• Murals throughout the building guide students in making positive sustainable choices.
• Fales’ sloped location presented the biggest design and construction challenge for HMFH Architects.

In the middle of a forested area in Westborough, Massachusetts you’ll find a surprisingly sustainable school.

Annie E. Fales Elementary School is reported to be New England’s first net-positive energy public school—with a sawtooth roof to maximize surface area for south-facing PV panels and north facing skylights, plus 40 geothermal wells supplying heating, cooling, and hot water.

Fales boasts a predicted Energy Use Intensity (EUI) of 24.7 and can generate 11.6% more—yes, more—energy than required to power the all-electric facility. Serving around 400 kindergarten through third grade students, the school celebrates its environment and shows off the wondrous possibilities of renewable energy. Westborough itself hopes to be carbon emissions–free by 2035.

“We had goals for the actual built environment of the school that inherently lent itself to be such a robust, sustainable school,” says Caitlin Osepchuk, an associate at HMFH Architects and project architect for Fales Elementary School.

HMFH kept the palette simple for the exterior. Exterior materials included concrete block from Jolley Concrete, phenolic paneling with a wood texture roofing material, uPVC windows by Intus, and aluminum curtain wall. Photo by Ed Wonsek

However, achieving net-zero was not part of the original feasibility study. Rather, it came up in schematic design. “We were always looking for ways to limit the energy use and find healthier materials that weren’t going to off-gas as much with low VOCs for these small students,” Osepchuk says. “As we finished out feasibility and got into schematic design it was clear we could achieve net-zero energy. The town and the chair of the school building committee said, ‘As a town of Westborough, we want to push the sustainable goals. We’re designing and paying for this new school. Let’s really push the envelope and let’s make it net-zero.’”

Photo by Ed Wonsek

As the design progressed efforts to limit energy use and maximize the amount of PV panels that could fit on the roof continued. The exterior incorporates CMU (concrete block), phenolic paneling—which has a wood texture and design to match the wooded landscape—roofing material, uPVC windows, and aluminum curtain wall. A neutral gray and brown face with warm flecks in it, the CMU brings out the wood coloring in the phenolic paneling. “We kept the palette pretty simple,” Osepchuk says.

HMFH projects tend to include wall graphics that function as learning opportunities. Photo by Ed Wonsek

Interior materials include linoleum flooring, paint, and phenolic paneling. Inside the two-story school, learning areas are organized into four project areas representing various landscapes: forest, meadow, marshland, and pond. They each correspond with a color palette and grade levels at the school.

Old school design was very stark and blank because everyone thought that was the way to keep kids engaged in what the teacher was lecturing about.

“Kids like a lot of color, and we like to make sure we include that in all of our school designs,” Osepchuk says. “Old school design was very stark and blank because everyone thought that was the way to keep kids engaged in what the teacher was lecturing about. Thankfully times have changed.”

Inside, carpet manufactured by Mohawk is included in spaces like the media center—where kids might want to sit on the floor and read—and the four project areas. Each classroom has a throw carpet for storytime or other class activities. Photo by Ed Wonsek

Designed in-house, storybook-style graphics on the walls depict Fales mascot—Annie the Hedgehog—adventuring through the four local ecosystems. Throughout the day students can connect with nature by peering through clerestory windows that allow natural light into the space.

“The murals help get the students excited about where they live, wanting to get out and explore as well,” Osepchuk says. “And foster that love of the environment so they’ll continue to make positive sustainable choices in the future to help maintain the ecosystems they live in.”

Natural light filtering through the clerestory windows helped Fales achieve net-positive energy status. While the school didn’t require as much electricity, HMFH worked with LAM Partners for indoor lighting. LAM Partners wanted to keep the light power density low while still creating and maintaining well-lit spaces. Photo by Ed Wonsek

While Fales’ scenic setting provides an intentional and aesthetic space for students to learn more about the world around them and appreciate the environment, building the school into a hill proved difficult.

Photo by Ed Wonsek

“It’s hard enough to build on a flat site. Now add in a pretty steep hill,” Osepchuk says. “It was challenging, but we used it as an opportunity to push the design and find opportunities to have a two-level school that’s accessible from the site on both the second and first floor.”

Pip Lewis, principal at HMFH Architects and project director for Fales Elementary School, says the slope impacted outdoor play areas. “One of the challenges because of the hillside was that each of these play fields needed to be made handicap accessible from the school and from the working area,” he says. “Long curving paths that connected the play areas.”

HMFH also had to be mindful of the nearby pond—a designated wetland. “One of the struggles during construction was keeping the pond clean,” Lewis says.

Completed in November 2021, the design team expects the school to stand the test of time. “We always have to choose durable materials, not only from a maintenance standpoint,” Osepchuk says. “We want to design schools that last at least 50 years.”

Sustainability diagram courtesy of HMFH Architects

Floor plan courtesy of HMFH Architects

Project Details

Project: Annie E. Fales Elementary School
Location: Westborough, MA
Completion: November 2021
Cost: $56.8 million
Architect: HMFH Architects
Electrical, Plumbing, and Fire Protection: R.W. Sullivan
Civil Engineer: Samiotes Consultants
Lighting & HVAC Consulting: LAM Partners
Contractor: Gilbane Building Co.
Interior Designer: HMFH Architects
Landscape Architect: Crosby Schlessinger Smallridge
Specifications: Kalin Associates

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• The future is being shaped inside the new Thunderbird School of Global Management at ASU.
• Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners and Jones Studio designed the project to celebrate old and new.
• The facilities are equipped to evolve to meet the latest technology needs throughout the project.

The world is at the center of the new Thunderbird School of Global Management at ASU in downtown Phoenix. Quite literally, an 8-foot-wide retractable digital globe hangs from the center of a large room, surrounded by LED screens, as part of many interactive components inside the school’s Digital Global Forum.

Within the facilities students can connect with people all over the world in real time using active and multi-dimensional technologies. With a modular approach to space planning and AV and IT fit for future plug-and-play, the headquarters is prepared to adapt to short- and long-term needs. Communal gathering spaces are designed for multi-use programming, with the ability to quickly transform from a study space to collaborative work or event space.

The design teams said the building had to embody the past, present, and future while also emphasizing tech. “It was an interesting paradigm to operate in, especially when you kind of have two clients in Thunderbird and ASU and are trying to navigate the needs of both to make sure they get the architecture they need for the next 50 to 100 years,” says Shawn Swisher, an architect at Jones Studio.

Much of the Thunderbird School is open to the public. The headquarters connects the ground floor to the public realm through the two-story Digital Global Forum open rotunda event space. Plentiful daylight pours in across five floors. Dedicated learning spaces include nine flexible classrooms, two sandbox classrooms, and seven group study rooms. People can attend lectures and events in the Global Decision Theater, experience a virtual reality language lab, 1,600-square-feet of digital displays, and a green screen studio.

The History

The building was designed to be a welcoming, inclusive space for international students, faculty, and alumni while connecting to the city. The Thunderbird School was on the verge of closing when it merged with Arizona State University and a plan was made to create a new location in downtown Phoenix. Architecture firms Moore Ruble Yudell and Jones Studio were tasked with designing the new headquarters for the Thunderbird School of Global Management. They wanted to make sure the design didn’t alienate current students and alumni, instead celebrating the old school and location while looking ahead excitedly to the future.

“Early on we said it was going to be probably the most technologically sophisticated business school—potentially in the world. It really had to be a welcoming, multicultural place,” says Buzz Yudell, partner at Moore Ruble Yudell. “It was the idea of balancing high tech with high touch, and it also had to be very much a place of Phoenix and of the region.”

The Thunderbird School of Global Management was founded after World War II with the goal to bring people from different cultures together to collaborate and study. It was an effort toward peace and understanding in a new world, and it started in a little area called Glendale on a former airbase. It was a tight-knit community, Yudell says, almost like going to camp, and students formed lifelong personal and professional relationships there.

The new school needed to be cutting edge, offering the most technically enhanced learning environment while still being inviting to neighbors. The design team wanted to honor the original campus, as alumni had been going there for almost 70 years before they had to relocate and merge with ASU to stay afloat. “H​​ow do you re-envision all of the memories and the significance of that place while also integrating it into a new home of downtown Phoenix—not closing your doors and turning your back to the city that you’re now making your new home for the future?” Swisher says.

The Latest Technology

The Digital Global Forum event space features a stadium-style ring of LED video screens that forms an encircling digital presentation field, while an LED globe at the center of the rotunda plays dynamic videos. The Digital Global Forum opens to the plaza through a two-story curtain wall glazing and a nearly 40-foot wide operable partition, establishing an openness between interior and exterior. Photo by Inessa Binenbaum

Every space was designed with technology in mind. “The whole building is set up for a tremendous amount of digital technology for teaching and collaborating,” Yudell says. The Global Form is a standout example of tech in action, as students and faculty can easily call collaborators on the other side of the world and work on problems together, surrounded by a floor to ceiling digital wall. “That room has a goal of being a globally connected, immersive space,” Yudell says.

The Innovation Labs on the ground floor near the Global Forum offer more flexible space and include table-size interactive virtual reality and augmented reality tablets. “People are encouraged to experiment, move things around, and bring in new kinds of projects,” Yudell says.

He says the design teams wanted to make the technology as user friendly as possible while investing in wireless hookups to make future tech expansions easier.

Location

All lighting uses LED sources. Acoustic baffles by Ceilings Plus in Barz Lumin White and Standard Silver. Photo by Inessa Binenbaum

Swisher says the downtown Phoenix location helped the new headquarters connect to the business core of the city. Jones Studio completed an ASU Law School project on the same block less than 10 years before. “They carved out this little postage stamp of a site to be used for a future project, and that ended up being the Thunderbird School. There was already this existing grain of pedestrian movements and the frontage to the streets.”

This allowed the architects to capitalize on public space. “There’s very little open public space in downtown Phoenix, and the significance of that—of creating spaces where people can be part of these incredible academic institutions in the heart of downtown, we wanted to draw focus to that,” Swisher says. “We put glass on that ground level to create this transparency from the city into the school so there could be this visual connection; you could see the action happening in the school at all times, and the school could also have a connection back to the city.” He says the Global Forum is a huge example, as it has the ability to open at the ground level directly to the outdoor plaza.

“That connection to community, that connection to Phoenix while also being around technology and highlighting public space in academic institutions—all of that is threading the needle of all of those goals between ASU and Thunderbird,” Swisher says.

Planning for the Future

Knoll Rockwell Highback Chairs with wire bases in colorful combinations overlook views to the outside. Photo by Inessa Binenbaum

The architects knew they wanted the project to be at least a 100-year building. Part of that meant not only using robust and, where possible, local materials that were very durable but also making the building extremely flexible for years to come.

“One of the biggest missions we collectively had was to think about sustainability in the broadest, most holistic sense,” Yudell says. “We’re targeting LEED Gold, but we wanted to really think beyond the checklist of LEED or any other guidelines.” The tight site and university budget were challenges. They needed an efficient grid for the whole building. “If you look at the plan, it’s about a 38-foot structural grid across the whole building with a very simple core and very simple organization,” Yudell says.

They paid special attention not only to designing to make future implementation of tech easier but also to allow for the spaces themselves to evolve. “We can never fully predict how pedagogy or research or collaboration is going to change, but essentially everything in the building can be reconfigured within this otherwise very straightforward organizational system,” Yudell says.

He says most business schools have been adding flat-floored classrooms to their traditional tiered classrooms but still have a significant number of tiered setups. “We took a leap and said—what if everything in the building were flat-floored and every room in the building had a really robust infrastructure for AV and digital technology, and everything could be flexible, changeable, adaptable, both in the short term and long term?”

Since teaching in many schools is moving more toward active learning with collaboration and reconfigurable spaces, the design team realized they didn’t really need tiered classrooms despite their long tradition. “We can set up more traditional configurations if we want to with furniture that steps up rather than floors that step up, for example,” Yudell says. He says not doing tiered classrooms also saved the project money.

Designing in the Desert

The landscape design brings the desert to downtown Phoenix by integrating habitats for birds and native pollinators in the heavily paved urban center. Native Mesquite trees pitch in with the building’s overhang to provide shade for the plaza throughout the day, creating a comfortable public space in the arid downtown. Plants were selected to minimize water use while offering abundant shading and mitigating heat island effect. Photo by Inessa Binenbaum

The new building also minimizes water and energy—vital in Phoenix’s desert environment. Materials and products were sourced locally to reduce emissions, and the design team emphasized passive design techniques.

Water and shade were important parts of the project—from low-flow fixtures to landscaping that helped to create cooler spaces. They harvest water from the roof to use in rain gardens rather than sending it straight to storm drains. “Those rain gardens are creating cooler spaces underneath deeply shaded, outdoor patio spaces,” Swisher says. Native, drought-resistant plants absorb heat while being a beautiful representation of the Sonoran Desert.

“One of the real challenges here was planning and designing in a desert environment for comfort and appropriateness of shade and materials but also for energy conservation,” Yudell says. “We were targeting a very low total amount of glazed areas—like 25%. That ended up being distributed with a great deal of transparency on the ground level and quite a lot on the roof level—which has this pub that’s a kind of recollection of the historic Glendale campus and another really important public place.” Smaller, carefully placed openings can be found all around the building, helping to further create energy-saving and provide comfortable conditions inside.

Swisher says they very intentionally recessed that storefront on the ground level 10 or 12 feet back from the building’s edge to create outdoor covered patios—almost like little living rooms. “On the southeast corner of the block there’s this small plaza that’s almost a 30-foot square that is recessed back into the building where people can sit and enjoy times of the year when it’s actually quite nice to sit outside.”

Tall, deeply recessed windows with shade fins bring more natural light deep into the interior without the glare and solar heat, too. The Global Forum space posed one of the biggest design issues, as they had to figure out how to put a big glass room on a west facing open side of the block. “We had to carve and shape the mass of the building and bring shades down to do everything we could to get that space to be comfortable,” Swisher says. “It’s performing quite well in part because we have this bridge that completes that western edge of the forum that helps keep shade in the building and keep the sun out.”

Interior Design

The headquarters is topped with a rooftop pub filled with artifacts from the original Thunderbird Control Tower Pub and offering views of downtown Phoenix. Photo by Inessa Binenbaum

The design teams very much wanted to honor the history of the original Thunderbird School with the design of the new building. Beautiful, two-story heritage spaces connect the floors and provide a place for students to relax during the day, surrounded by art collected from all over the world at Thunderbird.

The heritage spaces are organized by continent, with an Africa heritage space, Asia heritage space, and so forth. The colors, materials, and furnishings in each were designed to mirror the cultural expression of the artwork there. “The building is welcoming everyone as a multicultural experience and celebration of diversity, which is very important,” Yudell says.

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The art, history, and tech are all working together to connect people, Swisher says. “The building uses technology to create human connection, and technology connects Thunderbird with their centers across the globe. It creates a unique and rich educational opportunity for the students of Thunderbird to connect anywhere in the world.”

That’s embodied in part with the large interactive displays, but also by the physical layout of the space, with opportunities for human connection with the community, the city of Phoenix, and opening the building to the public. “Sure, we’re looking at a bunch of screens, but those screens are the focus of this communal public space, and then that public space is reaching out to the world through technology,” Swisher says. “Those are the ways I think you start to resonate with, ‘How does the digital display really speak to innovation?’”

Drawing courtesy of ASU

Project Details

Project: F. Francis and Dionne Najafi Thunderbird Global Headquarters
Location: Phoenix
Size: 110,000 square feet
Cost: $67 million
Architects: Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners, Jones Studio
Contractor: Okland Construction
Structural/MEP Engineer: Buro Happold Consulting
Sustainability/Daylighting Consultant: Buro Happold Consulting
Landscape Architect: Trueform Landscape

The post Designing the Future at Thunderbird Global Headquarters appeared first on gb&d magazine.

• George Washington University students are surrounded by light and life thanks to recent renovation by VMDO Architects.
• The architecture team carved a new courtyard to revitalize an almost century-old student residence.

Just four blocks away from the White House, students at George Washington University can find themselves immersed in a garden in the city.

But it wasn’t always this way. A few years ago, students had a lot of complaints about the first-year residence Thurston Hall—from slow elevators to moldy bathrooms. A recent renovation by VMDO Architects reinvigorated life to this 1929 brick building.

Courtyard Transformation

The Thurston Hall renovation started with one bold question: What possibilities open up by carving away a portion of the building?

Going into the project, the design team heard recurring themes from their client, including the university’s mission of “spark, energize, develop, and belong.” The design team was inspired by the existing light well in the building. “We asked ourselves, ‘What if the sun allowed us to bring that spark and vitality that this space is lacking right now?,’” says Andres Pacheco, a senior associate at VMDO.

Although the lightwell was visible from some student rooms, the space was not accessible to the students. The design team thought if they removed a portion of the south-facing facade of the lightwell, they could create a courtyard that brings more light to the student residence while creating an inviting social space. “It’s an adventurous, bold move to pitch to an owner to take away some thousands of square feet and a number of existing bedrooms to allow you to make the whole place come alive,” says Joe Atkins, a principal at VMDO.

But their client was thrilled by the possibility. “People were excited about taking this dark and dirty courtyard and turning into the building’s heart,” says Michelle Amt, director of sustainability and inclusion at VMDO.

Orientation

The exterior of the historic Thurston Hall at George Washington University. Photo by Alan Karchmer

Starting from that clear vision and the first decision to remove the south-facing lightwell facade, many of the other design choices fell into place naturally. “The building was already laying out where we can make the biggest impact,” Pacheco says.

The orientation allows lots of natural daylight while simultaneously providing shade. Opening up the courtyard also presented an opportunity to add vegetation to the space. The design team was intentional with the material they chose for the courtyard and the story it would tell. With terraces at different levels in the north-south direction, they wanted to create an effect of cascading greenery. To complement that they used earthy-colored cladding to create a warm, natural feeling.

In the east-west direction they painted the original red brick walls with a lighter color to help reflect more light.

Lighting

With daylight an important priority, the projects used thermally broken windows with high-performance glazing units to allow light in while maintaining energy efficiency. Bringing in more natural light to interior spaces like corridors and common spaces, the project achieved a reduced lighting power density by 65%.

Community and Wellness

Research shows that college students who are able to connect with one another experience better overall well-being and academic success. Photo by Alan Karchmer

The changes to the courtyard to enhance daylight and provide more community spaces also aligns with the health and wellness goals of the project. “We know that from a number of different mental health surveys that the primary drivers of mental health problems for students is a lack of community and social isolation,” Amt says. Students’ physical environments play a large role in that.

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Prior to the renovation, stepping into Thurston felt like going through an endless loop of doors and dark hallways. There were very little community spaces. In the new design the team created different scales of community. Everything revolves around the giant courtyard, but there are also two-story kitchens that connect between floors, large study areas that allow students to study together, and smaller nooks that feel more intimate. “You have all these spaces of prospect and refuge that give you this aspect of security and belonging,” Amt says.

Air Quality

Before the renovation Thurston Hall was not ventilated. Although this is common for older residence halls, research shows that air quality affects cognitive function, depression, and anxiety. The renovation adds a dedicated outdoor air system to bring in fresh air. CO2 levels were averaging around 1600 ppm and reached as high as 3000 ppm before the renovation, now staying below 900 ppm.

Water

The renovation also added a 3,000-cubic-foot cistern to capture rainwater, allowing Thurston Hall to use 40% less potable water than the standard residence hall. This is a significant feat, considering that Thurston Hall has all-gendered bathrooms, Amt says. “Because we don’t have urinals, we’re not able to get the extreme water reduction numbers you would normally see in a LEED project.”

Energy Efficiency

The renovation added insulation to the exterior walls and roof and improved the airtightness. The project added water source heat pumps but had to keep the existing boilers because they were shared with another building. Still, the renovated building used 38% less energy than the average residence and dining hall.

Embodied Carbon

The renovated building keeps 80% of the existing walls, floors, and roof. “A good deal of the existing structure was reused and augmented to bring it to current standards,” Amt says. “We’re reinvigorating this old structure with new life which prepares it for another 100 years in a much more human-centric, 21st century approach to creating community in residence halls.”

Drawing courtesy of VMDO Architects

Project Details

Project: George Washington University Thurston Hall
Location: Washington, D.C.
Completion: August 2022
Size: 200,000 square feet
Architect: VMDO Architects
Contractor: Clark Construction Company
Interior Designer: SMBW
Wayfinding & Environmental Graphics: Iconograph
Landscape Architect: VMDO, Siteworks
Civil Engineer: Wiles Mensch
Mechanical Engineer: CMTA
Structural Engineer: Springpoint
Geotechnical Engineer: ECS

The design team wanted to make the interiors feel like home—cozy and welcoming. This informed warm color choices, with no stark whites or finishes that would feel too austere. The color palette incorporates the school’s colors (blue and buff) to align with the university’s brand image, with occasional pops of color to make the spaces feel age-appropriate. Photo by Alan Karchmer

The architects worked to curate a variety of spaces to support a range of student activities at different scales, from places for one person to take a phone call to larger spaces for group studying and interaction. Photo by Alan Karchmer

The post VMDO Architects Bring Nature and Color to George Washington University appeared first on gb&d magazine.

• Architects transformed a vacant 1970s shopping mall into a thriving Austin Community College campus.
• Public spaces like a restaurant, auditorium, and art gallery are located off a promenade, making the campus a walkable neighborhood.

Austin Community College’s Highland Campus is the kind of place where a professional dancer and a future dentist mingle over a meal prepared by a chef in training. When you walk through the campus’ open floor plan and peek through the glass-walled classrooms, you can feel the energy of thousands of people learning. It all takes place in a building where people once flocked to buy a new pair of shoes.

In April 2022 ACC announced they had finished remodeling the more than 400,000 square feet of what was once the Highland Mall. The mall originally opened in 1971 and flourished until the brick-and-mortar shopping experience fell out of favor with consumers.

For more than a decade ACC had planned on revitalizing the empty building. The first phase was executed by Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects, who completed the second phase with Perkins&Will years later. There was a lot of excitement in moving the project forward, according to Gardner Vass, design principal with Perkins&Will. “There was potential to make a huge impact within the neighborhood, becoming a center for innovative learning and bringing a renewed energy to a very important part of Austin,” Vass says. “The mall site has many advantages—being a central hub near major roadways, having several adaptive reuse building opportunities, and being close to public transportation.”

Exposed interiors at Austin Community College are meant to foster creativity and inspire students while paying homage to the building’s original form as a shopping center. Photo by Dror Baldinger

Vass has seen more developers interested in adaptive reuse, not just for the economic advantage of reusing what already exists, but also to address the issue of finite resources and development space. Repurposing materials allows developers to decrease their carbon footprint and reduce the amount of debris sent to a landfill during a project.

But not every building can easily be revitalized. Fortunately the Highland buildings’ strong infrastructure made it an ideal candidate for a large-scale multi-use project. Its steel structural allowed for flexibility in re-creating something spectacular. “Having good structural bones and volume allowed the team to craft a tailored design reflecting the college’s innovative curriculum,” Vass says.

Plentiful natural light fills this collaborative learning space at Austin Community College’s Highland Campus thanks to solutions from Kingspan Light + Air. Photo by Dror Baldinger

To transform a 1970s era mall into a multi-use learning center, Vass and his team turned empty spaces from the former shopping plaza into bright learning spaces. “We took classroom program spaces and placed them within double volume spaces so as to activate the center circulation space,” he says. “In some ways the mall had attributes that allowed us to be even more creative.”

One of the team’s first steps was to create an open-air promenade to connect the many programs within. Public spaces like a culinary arts restaurant, auditorium, and art gallery are located off the promenade, transforming the campus into a walkable neighborhood.

Many of the mall’s original materials were reused in the project. Steel that once supported the building now frames jewel boxes designed for student interaction. Salvaged glass from the original storefronts was used as aggregate in new sidewalks and concrete floors.

Other sustainable efforts include solar panels that offset energy usage and strategic light fixtures that work to reduce light pollution. An irrigation system is supported by harvested rainwater, while low-flow plumbing fixtures reduce water consumption by 34%.

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ACC has also made its campus easily accessible by the city’s metro system to incentivize students to reduce their carbon footprint and support a walkable community. It’s these efforts that earned the project LEED Gold.

Photo by Dror Baldinger

The ACC Highland Campus is built with the future of the community in mind—both environmentally and by stimulating urban revitalization. “If you drive by you’ll see there are all kinds of new retail shops, coffee shops, and restaurants. There’s also a major housing boom,” Vass says. “I think it has a lot to do with ACC being there and the draw it brings for students and families.”

ACC’s master plan allows for more growth in the future, too, and Vass is excited. “You sit back and say, ‘Wow. That’s a lot of programs and a lot of opportunities. We were able to make spaces and create areas for all of those programs to occur.”

Project Details

Project: Austin Community College Highland Campus
Location: Austin, TX
Completion: April 2022
Size: 411,000 square feet
Architect: Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects, Perkins&Will
Civil Engineer: MWM Design Group
Structural Engineer: Datum Engineers
MEP Engineer: Shah Smith
Contractor: Flintco
Landscape Architect: Coleman & Associates
Awards: LEED Gold

Photo by Dror Baldinger

Photo by Dror Baldinger

Glass-walled classrooms allow for an interactive experience at Austin Community College. Photo by Dror Baldinger

The post Adaptive Reuse in Higher Ed is a Success at Austin Community College appeared first on gb&d magazine.

• EskewDumezRipple designed the Thaden School to challenge traditional paradigms of education.
• The team proposed the campus be modeled more after a small college than a monolithic middle or high school.
• They also sought to answer: How do you reconnect kids to the land to learn about chemistry and biology in a physical way?

It’s a rare opportunity that a school can be imagined from the ground up—with an eye not only to its educational vision, but its environmental impacts on the surrounding community.

Envisioned by the Walton Family Foundation, the nonprofit led by the founders of Walmart based in Bentonville, Thaden School is part of the company’s mission to elevate its hometown as a sophisticated global headquarters that, with record-breaking population growth and new construction, remains pleasantly livable.

The Challenge

The dining hall inside Thaden School’s Home Building is where all of the campus comes together for meals. Photo by Tim Hursley

The challenge posed to our design team involved working with the school’s founders to organize an empty 26-acre site with 125,000 square feet of building program.

A combination of intensive outdoor programming and carefully orchestrated building footprints would theoretically transform the site into a network of indoor and outdoor rooms hosting a variety of functions, programs, and events for Thaden students and faculty as well as the larger Bentonville community.

The design team (led by our firm EskewDumezRipple together with Marlon Blackwell Architects and Andropogon) led the creation of a holistic master plan to guide the school in developing the campus. The founding vision for Thaden School sought to challenge traditional paradigms of education.

The Solution

A lush landscape adjoins Thaden School’s Home Building, with Marlon Blackwell Architects’ Reels building in the background. Photo by Tim Hursley

The master plan proposed the campus be modeled more on a small college campus than a monolithic middle or high school building. In early conversations Founding School Head Clayton Marsh memorably said, “When it’s cold the kids need to feel the weather, and when it rains they need to get wet.” Many classrooms were designed to spill out into adjacent outdoor areas.

This attitude toward circulation was similarly reflected in the distribution of buildings on campus. Academic programs are disbursed across the landscape, each with their own lab/makerspace, where students learn to integrate the movements of their minds and hands.

In turn, the design of individual buildings were divided up among the architectural team, and EskewDumezRipple was tasked with designing the Home Building—the crux of the schools meals program, an amalgamation of science and biology, and an exercise in challenging default ideas of consumption and production. The Home Building simultaneously provides an expansive dining hall, where all of campus comes together for meals.

An early question emerged in developing the building to connect to the school’s curriculum: “How do you reconnect kids to the land to learn about chemistry and biology in a physical way?”

Students take a class in the Teaching Kitchen at Thaden School. Photo by Tim Hursley

Thaden’s urban agricultural program brings a fundamental shift to a traditionally classroom setting. Every aspect of farming—planting seeds, composting, harvesting—is integrated in a way that teaches children about science through their experiences in the world. Students take classes in a state-of-the-art teaching kitchen—a truly unique space in the Home Building and one that deeply espouses the school’s “learning by doing” mantra.

An active greenhouse maintains a prominent position on campus—not hidden away in a quiet corner. The adjacent landscape is a productive one. An urban agriculture program features fruit and vegetable fields, orchards, and planter boxes. The design celebrates this, and everything from the building program (teaching kitchen) to the supporting landscape (paths between buildings built to handle wheelbarrows) was customized in support.

Their integration represents a near-perfect loop. Students harvest crops from the adjacent agriculture program. Crops are cooked and prepared, contributing to student meals. And compost from meals is used to fertilize crops. Integrated tracking dashboards also enable students to monitor their consumption of energy, food, and water in ways that help them appreciate the global impact of local behavior.

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The building’s design places sustainability central to students’ education. This begins with an adjacent landscape that acts as a botanical textbook filled with a diversity of plants, flowers, and trees—tallgrass prairie, oak and pecan woodlands, bottomland hardwood forests, freshwater wetlands—a microcosm of the region’s native plant communities.

In designing the adjoining landscape of the building in the wild vernacular model of the region, very little of the campus landscape requires active maintenance. In addition, by integrating various agricultural elements into landscape itself, it becomes a revenue-producing asset fundamental to the curriculum rather than an overhead burden.

A geothermal well field in the large central quad next to the Home Building behaves as a giant thermal battery throughout the seasons, yielding very high overall system efficiency while reducing energy costs. In fact, the geothermal well field presented the school with construction cost savings versus a traditional system, meaning the payback period is zero years.

Energy-Efficient Results

Thaden School sits on a 26-acre site in Arkansas. Here, the Home Building is seen in the rear of campus. Photo by Tim Hursley

The Home Building was designed to achieve an EUI of 23 or less. The baseline EUI for a typical high school building as defined by ASHRAE is 74 kBTU/sf*yr. This means the Home Building was designed to be approximately 70% more efficient than similar schools. A school building of 25 EUI or less is commonly considered to be Zero Energy Ready (ZER) meaning that it could likely achieve Zero Energy (ZE) status with the addition of rooftop photovoltaic arrays, and the Home Building was designed so future solar might be easily installed.

The design team also saw the Home Building and its adjacent landscape as an opportunity to deal with site-wide stormwater management issues on a relatively flat site with no infiltration. A rich, outdoor environment activates the interiors and becomes part of a gateway experience to campus. In the rear of the building, an ever-present water lab detains a majority of rainwater onsite and simultaneously encourages learning—teachers can show students different biological processes. In making such interventions visible, the design hopes to inspire not only students, but the broader community, too.

The post The Thaden School Design Challenges Traditional Educational Layouts appeared first on gb&d magazine.

• Hord Coplan Macht and Moody Nolan designed Thurgood Marshall Hall with a mix of semi-suite and apartment-style housing.
• The project emphasizes healthy and sustainable building materials, with a focus on improved indoor air quality.
• Student focus groups helped to inform the design, revealing a need for rich amenities to support students’ mental and physical health.

Over the past several years Morgan State University, a historically Black university and Maryland’s preeminent urban public research university, has deployed a strategic plan with a primary goal of increasing recruitment and improving retention of students on campus. The university aims to harness a welcoming, comfortable community where students can live and enjoy the many benefits of campus living while increasing sustainable elements and practices across campus.

In 2020 the university tapped our teams at Hord Coplan Macht and Moody Nolan to design more than 200,000 square feet of livable space for students, including a new residence hall and dining facility with the intent to curate a home-like and high-end experience for the student population. Officially opening its doors this in fall 2022, Thurgood Marshall Hall provides a mix of semi-suite and apartment-style housing, including more than 660 beds for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as a 40,000 square foot dining facility which opened in January.

The project honors and pays tribute to Baltimore native and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Thurgood Marshall with unique murals. The new facility, built upon a former recreation field and the former Thurgood Marshall Apartments, forms the campus hub for student activity and enhances the community culture by creating a vibrant and robust space for gathering and living. The residence hall, complete with 24-hour dining and carefully cultivated individual and group study areas, forms a live, dine, learn nexus for students.

As a local Baltimore-based firm and with our longstanding relationship with the university, Hord Coplan Macht was the perfect match for the project. As the largest African-American owned and operated architecture firm in the country, Moody Nolan was uniquely positioned for this project, as the team brings an authentic understanding of the cultural, social, and economic impacts of each space they create. Moody Nolan has worked with over 30 historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to elevate the character and quality of campuses, while creating a first-class college experience. The resulting project enforces a sense of community, where students can make friends, relax, and study. Our teams partnered to create an organized, intentional space designed to play a vital role in students’ academic success.

Bring the Students Home

Floor-to-ceiling windows provide natural lighting with views of downtown Baltimore. Photo courtesy of Hord Coplan Macht

Going into the project, both of our teams thoroughly researched the existing structures on campus, the demographic in which they were designing for, and the overall goals of the university. We unveiled the need for a centralized, community-driven student living facility for first- and second-year students to experience all that college has to offer while enjoying a sustainable, high-end living experience.

The design process began during the early days of the pandemic, which influenced some of the planning––particularly as it relates to health-focused additions. The air filtration system was upgraded to help keep the students healthy. All the interior finishes selected are made from low-emitting materials, helping to further improve the overall air quality. We also looked at high touchpoint areas and sought out more sanitary options, like a foot-activated call button for each elevator.

Other health-conscious features included skylights strategically placed throughout the building to capture as much natural light as possible. Floor-to-ceiling windows were also incorporated, which not only bring in natural lighting but provide incredible views of downtown Baltimore and the surrounding areas.

Student Insight Informing Interior Design

Prolific court case murals found on each floor showcasing Thurgood Marshall’s legacy. Photo courtesy of Hord Coplan Macht

To inform the interior design, Moody Nolan conducted student focus groups to fully understand what they wanted in each space to support their education and lifestyle. Moody Nolan met with more than 50 students, staff, and faculty, representing 12 interest groups on campus, including residence life and housing, auxiliary services, student affairs, multiculturalism and diversity, and student government.

The findings revealed a need for the new facility to address student success beyond a place to sleep and eat. It was a high priority to have rich amenities to support students’ mental and physical health. Both teams prioritized a variety of spaces within the overall design to promote wellness. The spaces included fitness studios, a counseling center, and a tutoring center to further promote student success.

Students and stakeholders were empowered throughout the engagement process. The team presented example unit configurations with the focus groups and openly discussed the pros and cons of each scenario. Ultimately the semi-suite, with two bedrooms for four students, was the preferred unit. The unit mix also offered apartment-style and single options for students. Community building opportunities were included on every floor with a unique dispersion of destinations for lounging, studying, and working out.

Moody Nolan also identified that the dining space should accommodate more than just food service. It was discovered that students wanted a holistic approach to their dining experience that centered on well-being—one that connected healthy options, grab-and-go, and varied meal plans with their desire to informally study and collaborate around food. The vision produced a model outcome of creating a healthy dining experience that prioritized student wellness.

The interior materials help to support this experience as well. The flooring features organic patterns and textures that mimic biophilic elements. Changes in color and pattern were used effectively to support wayfinding. Moody Nolan used contrasting light and dark flooring in the dining hall to break up the large space as well as the zone areas for private versus public seating groups. In the residential corridors, two Green Label Plus–certified carpets work together harmoniously to highlight unit entries.

The use of rapidly renewable, tackable wallcovering outside units helps to promote personalization of the space and offers better acoustics. Acoustics were a vital part of the overall design of the building, especially in the design of the dining hall. Moody Nolan created an intriguing design using lay-in ceiling panels alongside baffles that have a wooden texture. Soffits follow the flooring patterns below to tie the two elements together and further define the zones of seating below.

As students walk into the building, vestibules with walk-off carpet tiles help to capture particulates from the outside environment, further contributing to the cleanliness of the space. The product itself is another CRI Green Label Plus-certified product as well as a mindful MATERIAL.

Within the residential interior Hord Coplan Macht and Moody Nolan also incorporated environmental graphics of Thurgood Marshall to convey the story of his legacy and accomplishments. Each floor features a mural highlighting a significant court case which defined not only his life, but history as a whole. Further establishing the university’s commitment to the success of their students, a Morgan State University art program student painted a mural on the ground floor showcasing Marshall through various periods of his life and career.

Site Planning

Image courtesy of Hord Coplan Macht

Looking beyond the interior elements, we also wanted to focus on providing dedicated outdoor spaces, which we’ve found over the course of the pandemic are essential for students’ health and wellness. Our team at Hord Coplan Macht was responsible for the landscape and hardscape design around the building. Seeking to provide a home away from home for the students, we opted for a variety of outdoor spaces to fit every need, including an entry plaza with bench seating, an outdoor dining area, dedicated lounge spaces with charging stations for laptops and phones, and a sloped lawn space. We also designed a green roof amassing more than 20,000 square feet, which contributes to reducing storm water quantity and improving the quality of the water. A selection of water conserving plumbing fixtures were also implemented within the building to contribute to a 35% reduction in indoor water use, further contributing to the overall sustainability efforts across the campus.

When planning the overall landscaping, the largest obstacle we faced was working with the stormwater management constraints and trying to find creative solutions to meet local mandates. We were able to achieve this by placing various water management sites across the site, which seamlessly blended with the landscape. To provide additional lounge seating and outdoor gathering areas, strategically placed benches were included along the rainwater management areas.

Looking Toward the Future

Photo courtesy of Hord Coplan Macht

The overall project has been a success among students thus far, and we’re looking forward to continuing to improve the lifestyle for students and further developing our relationship with the university with our next phase. Currently under construction, our teams have designed an additional 600-bed high-rise building, situated next to the dining facility. The next phase is slated for completion in August 2024.

Project Details

Project: Thurgood Marshall Hall, Morgan State University
Location: Baltimore, MD
Completion: August 2022
Size: 222,000 square feet
Architects: Hord Coplan Macht, Moody Nolan
Contractor: Gilbane Building Company
Landscape Architect: Hord Coplan Macht
Developer: Maryland Economic Development Corporation

Architect Yanitza Brongers-Marrero of Moody Nolan contributed to this article. 

The post This Morgan State University Design Emphasizes a Sustainable, Home-Like Experience appeared first on gb&d magazine.

• A new library in the San Francisco Bay Area is both durable and inspirational in its design.
• The project accomplished its net zero goal by optimizing natural sunlight and looking beyond its site for energy production and water reuse.
• The open space of the library is designed to anticipate the changing needs of people over the next century.

When the city of Hayward, California hired Noll & Tam Architects to build their new library, they requested a Chevrolet, not a Cadillac. In other words: durable, no frills, and budget-friendly.

But public spaces, paid for and owned by a community’s citizens, should rise above the common denominator of durability. The recently completed Hayward Public Library is that project—a model for public buildings that is sustainable and inspirational.

“The role of the library in our society and culture has evolved quite dramatically from a place to store books and read them in a quiet space into active community facilities where people come to meet,” says Chris Noll, principal at Noll & Tam.

Besides offering media in a wide variety of languages, the 58,000-square-foot library contains a homework tutoring center, a digital media creation lab, a makerspace with 3D printing, and meeting rooms. The list of things that can be checked out is broad, from laptops to vegetable seeds.

A Net Zero Project

The site of the old library has been transformed into a city plaza. Underneath, a 400,000-gallon cistern collects rainwater for reuse. Photo courtesy of Noll & Tam Architects

The visual centerpiece of the Hayward Library is its bright interior atrium with a curving staircase that resembles three brushstrokes. The atrium is also an essential component of the architect’s net zero energy, LEED Platinum goal.

“We put this atrium into the center of the building that was very carefully modeled to bring in as much daylight as we could,” Noll says. By optimizing daylight in both the winter and the summer, the architects could reduce the total energy demanded on all three floors of the building.

With the relatively small footprint of the library, the architects also looked beyond the immediate site—installing additional solar panels on the municipal parking garage next door to supplement the building’s energy production.

This isn’t the only place where the sustainable infrastructure of the Hayward Library extends beyond the building. The site of the old public library across the street had a basement that the architects converted into an underground cistern for rainwater. The 400,000-gallon cistern is an example of how adaptive reuse and water reuse can go hand in hand, collecting rainwater from rooftops and plaza surfaces to be reused as gray water throughout the complex.

The library’s facade features an open joint red terra-cotta rain screen, matching the color of the city’s historically brick buildings. Photo courtesy of Noll & Tam Architects

An additional consideration was the longevity of building. Keeping in mind the library’s 100-year lifespan the architects selected a red terra-cotta rainscreen for the building’s facade. The versatile, environmentally friendly material blends with the historically brick downtown Hayward and requires minimum maintenance over time.

“There are 100 slightly varied colors, which gives it this nice texture and reflects the earth,” says Scott Salge, principal at Noll & Tam. “The soil it comes from really shows through in that material.”

Thinking Ahead

The open interior of the library carries natural light into the building and can be adapted to different uses throughout the building’s lifespan. Photo courtesy of Noll & Tam Architects

No building typology has perhaps been more disrupted than the community library, a place that has retained a mission of education while evolving significantly with the emergence of the internet. At its core it’s a public building meant to provide and allocate resources for a community’s citizens. To be a well-functioning building it must not only be sustainable and last a century but also anticipate the changing needs of its occupants.

Drawing courtesy of Noll & Tam Architects

This adaptability was put to test when, before the building’s completion, the interior was changed during the Covid pandemic. The design team configured the library’s large atrium with long tables, which were used to sort books and materials that Hayward’s citizens requested while under lockdown.

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Now, with the building fully open, Noll has noticed that the conference and meeting spaces have become more popular as individuals, companies, and nonprofits seek meeting spaces in the center of Hayward. He expects that, in the next century, the open interior of the building will change significantly as the idea of a public library continues to shift.

“I think it could continue to serve as a library for the next century quite easily. But it will need to adapt.”

Project Credits

Project: Hayward Public Library
Location: Hayward, CA
Completion: 2021
Size: 58,000 square feet
Architect: Noll & Tam Architects
Structural Engineer: IDA Structural Engineers
Civil Engineer: BKF Engineers
Geotechnical Engineer: Langan Engineering & Environmental Services
MEP: Integral Group
Lighting Design: Illuminosa
Acoustics: Charles M Salter Assoc.
Sustainable Strategies: Loisos + Ubbelohde
Signage: Matthew Williams Design
Contractor: T. B. Penick & Sons
Interior Design: Noll & Tam
Landscape Architect: RHAA

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