Honor Awards

Spruce Street Nursery School
Boston

Bargmann Hendrie + Archetype Inc.
Early Education
Capacity: 49 students
Size: 3,700 sq. feet

Located on the second floor of a new 37-story high-end residential tower in downtown Boston, the new home for this nursery school is a significant departure for the school that previously had occupied a quaint building in the historic Beacon Hill neighborhood. Four classrooms are provided for children aged 2 to 5 in a 3,700-square-foot space despite both a restrictive budget and site. However, a thoughtful collaboration between educators and architects resulted in a marvelous solution. Details like cubbies in the kitchen and airplane lamps hanging over the computers grace this child-centered world.

"This wonderful project has many qualities that should be found, but alas, are not, in educational facilities for adults. In particular, l love the sense of warmth and intimacy and the sense that individuals can inhabit this facility in ways and means of their choosing."

– Peter Jamieson

 

 

 

"In spite of the restrictions (columns, elevators, ceiling heights, three sides with no windows), the result of the open plan, allowing interchange between children, the decoration, furniture, colors and lights, make it a splendid space for learning and playing."

– Rodolfo Almeida

 

 

 

Paschalisschol
The Hague, Netherlands

Atelier PRO Architects
Elementary School and Child Daycare
Capacity: 400 students
Size: 38,578 sq. feet

This primary school and daycare center blurs the lines between classroom and corridor, indoor and outdoor space. Each design decision makes effective use of resources while maximizing the space for learning. The treatment of an old chestnut tree exemplifies the approach: the tree was located centrally on the site where the school was to be constructed. Rather than remove the tree, the school’s volumes were divided to work around it, and it became a focal point for the play court.

Opening onto the play court classrooms, gym, and a central aula (gathering hall), the student body is divided in three houses. Each classroom is divided in two zones: one zone for instruction by the teacher and the other for independent work. The independent work area is provided for in the hall, joined to the classroom by large, transparent sliding doors.

Here is an approach that provides a delightful learning environment with fewer than 100 square feet per student.

"The light, color and transparency between outdoor and indoor is brilliant. A place you can overview as a student and feel serenity."

–Ulla Kjœrvang

"A beautifully transparent and intimate school that meets and exceeds the educational vision where ‘children develop in openness and trust.’ The extension of the primary learning space into the hallway and to the outside courtyard is exceptional. The use of wide glass doors provides a unique and flexible subdivision of space."

–Jeff Lackney

 

High Tech High International
San Diego

Carrier Johnson
Capacity: 400 students
Size: 32,000 sq. feet, 0.638 acres

Adapted from a 1950s Navy facility, the design takes good advantage of the tall, industrial-scaled spaces. The plan is based on an adviser rather than classroom-based system, where each faculty member serves as an adviser to approximately 12 students. Working in teams of varying size, teachers are responsible for the academic achievement of the 50 to 60 students in their group. While the advisory groups and larger teams provide a sense of identity, the school is anything but turned inward. High Tech High is designed to support community-based internships – the flowing space and transparency of the design successfully fosters internal collaboration and views out to the community.

"Outstanding in my view. The ideas expressed here are very important – personalization, outward looking approach, etc., and the free-flowing and warm spaces are very impressive."

–John Mayfield

"The design stands out by its compactness, excellent scale and the variety of spaces, flexible and visually connected, allowing interaction between students and teachers. The school commons is of particular attraction, which serves as an entrance and a multipurpose space. There is a beautiful use of space, colors and structure."

–Rodolfo Almeida

 

 

 

 

Universidad de Salamanca
Villamayor, Spain

Dr. Pablo Campos Calvo-Sotelo
New Campus
Capacity: 1,500-2,000 students
Size: 75 acres

The master plan for the University of Salamanca embodies the principles of sustainable development within the historic and economic context of an 800-year-old tradition. As the oldest university in Spain, founded in 1218, the expansion from Salamanca into the neighboring town of Villamayor is a bold projection into the 21st century. This is the first campus in Spain adapted from its genesis to the Bologna 2010 requirements of no more than 25 students per teacher.

Architect and campus planner Dr. Pablo Campos Calvo-Sotelo builds the master plan upon years of research on North America and Europe campuses, as published in his award-winning book, El Viaje de la Utopia (The Voyage to Utopia: a history and analysis of campus master planning in North America and Europe, 2002).

"This project provides many thoughtful and creative ideas worth cheering for. The campus is being developed from the ground up to serve as a learning community fully integrated with the surrounding neighborhoods, with strong connections to nature, a solid grounding in the age-old historic precedents it must protect and preserve, attention to multiple modalities of learning, care for personalization of the learning experience, blurring the lines between academic and real-world learning, using the natural beauty of the site itself to foster physical fitness activities like walking and bicycling, attention to the social and spiritual dimensions of a campus design and care for local building traditions, including the use of local sandstone."

–Prakash Nair

"Poetic in its approach, this master plan celebrates nature, curiosity and campus-community connections. Among the most appealing ideas are the intentional 25:1 student-to-teacher ratio (personalized education) complemented by the deliberate use of the agora, which celebrates the marketplace of ideas. Such circuitry concurrently engages the mind and celebrates the senses."

–Victoria Bergsagel

"The campus site planning is structured by taking advantage of the river Tormes. Thematic parks along the river bank serve to integrate the university’s programs with citizens’ recreation and life experiences."

–Mariza Alves

 

Zhangde Primary School
Singapore

CPG Consultants Pte. Ltd.
Elementary School
Capacity: 1,400 students
Size: 184,440 sq. feet

Singapore, with one of the most densely packed populations in the world, provides a model to balance large scale public areas, smaller reflective spaces and play areas. The Zhangde Primary School elegantly steps between multi-story blocks and landscaped courts, creating learning gardens with a storybook appeal.

"As an island, Singapore has an incredible space challenge. While the Ministry of Education might seek alternative approaches to site usage – locating ‘left-over’ pocket sites for smaller schools, this program for 1,400 elementary school students has been planned with consummate skill. The colors and handling of the exterior courtyard are an affirmation of life, individuality and the importance of art in a tiny nation with a past tradition that placed the public good over individual expression. The learning garden has a fairy-tale appeal that will make anyone relax and open their senses to learning."

–Randall Fielding

"The design clearly supports active and integrated learning. The connection between indoors and outdoors is done very well in an extreme urban area. The recognition of the importance and attention paid to the void is unique and often missing in other projects."

–Susan Wolff