Honor Awards
Tajimi Junior High School
Tajimi-shi, Gifu, Japan
Grades: 7-9
Capacity: 580 students
Size: 113,500 square feet
Acreage: 7 acres
Lead Architect: Atelier Zo
Display Firms: Atelier Zo with Atelier Shura
This remarkable school adapts to changing aims and situations day to day: the flexible structure meets changing situations. The site spreads between the old town and the new town. The three school building wings line on a north-south axis, with a courtyard and promenade in between.
The classrooms and resource center face the courtyard. The succession from a classroom to roofed exterior hallway adds life to the courtyard. The hallway acts as an extension of both the classrooms and the courtyard. Each floor has terraces in various sizes.
The rooftops and verandas, places usually prohibited to students, are designed for student activities. The many exterior stairs connect the courtyard and the rooftop. People move freely from inside to outside, up and down. A reminder that both body and mind should not be closed up in a box. Inside and outside, the space must continue in succession.
The site and buildings are covered with plants that blend with the surrounding hills and park greenery. These plant belts integrate each level of the environment. Many elements here affect the senses: the wind; the silence and whiteness of snow; the sound of crickets; the smell of flowers, plants, and rain. The space appeals to all five senses.
A priority in planning was to create spaces where students can find time to relax. It was important to design a school environment that generates mental ease and comfort, nurturing the student.
A school is a place for living and activity where many people spend most of their day. All around, there are benches, small corners, and ambiguous spaces for people to sit and relax. Each of these places will be someone’s favorite place, and become a part of their school day memories.
High Tech Middle School
San Diego, Calif., United States
Grades: 6-8
Capacity: 400 students
Size: 25,700 square feet
Acreage: 1 acre
Lead Architect: Carrier Johnson
"Overall, an outstanding example of a ‘new paradigm’ school facility. The school of the future is here – today. Elements of flexibility, collaborative space and seamless transition between formal and informal learning zones. very well done."
-Prakash Nair
Launched by an industry and educator coalition, this middle school is founded on three design principles:
- Personalization: The learning community is structured to allow teachers to know their students well.
- Adult World Connection: Through community service and community-based projects, students collaborate with adults on work whose success has meaning well beyond the school walls.
- Common Intellectual Mission: School leadership expects all students to go on to high school and graduate well prepared for post-secondary work, education and citizenship.
Designed to allow flexibility for varying grade levels, the school integrates technical and academic education, preparing students for post-secondary education and leadership in the high technology industry.
The project site is in an old Navy building built in 1943, originally used as a technical training school for Navy air-conditioning repairmen. The building had undergone numerous renovations and retrofits, each of which had to be carefully peeled back in order to establish a clean, safe environment for children.
The classrooms for each grade are clustered into neighborhoods. Each neighborhood has a central plaza space called a studio. The studios allow for both entire-grade gatherings and additional teaching space. The faculty is decentralized with the offices for each neighborhood’s teachers located off the studios.
Windows allow for observation from the offices of the classrooms and studio spaces, as well as the circulation areas. The solution of high-visibility, coupled with high sound ratings (STC), allows students to remain within a teacher’s view while providing office privacy and eliminating distractions.
Classrooms open up to each other via large overhead doors to accommodate team-teaching. The 25-foot-wide doors incorporate full-height marker board writing surfaces and projection surfaces. These Classroom clusters are arranged along a naturally-lit circulation spine. This area is beneath sawtooth skylights, providing 100 percent of the required lighting levels via diffused daylight.
The spine is reminiscent of an urban streetscape, complete with varying setbacks, heights, and a neighborhood for each grade – sixth, seventh and eighth. The three neighborhoods reinforce the three guiding principles, and each expresses a separate, but related principle through changes in materials and textures.
As a public space, the spine is also a gallery to exhibit student work, and it connects the neighborhoods to the main school commons, a sunken amphitheatre for all-school gatherings and presentations.