Merit Awards

Warren Skaaren Environmental Learning Center
Westcave Preserve, Texas

Jackson & McElhaney Architects
Alternative Learning Category
Capacity: 175 students
Size: 5,000 sq. feet, 30 acres

A 30-acre nature preserve and canyon, 28 miles northwest of Austin, Texas, expanded its community programs by building a new "wilderness classroom" and providing a meeting place for walking tours to a nearby waterfall and "live" grotto. The goal of the two agencies who partnered for the project was to foster respect and stewardship of the natural environment, provide environmental education and preserve this sanctuary well into the future.

Both the interior and exterior of the building instruct and shelter simultaneously. For example, the terrazzo floor patterns illustrate the interlocking presences of pi in the golden rectangle (used by ancient Greeks and Egyptians), the logarithmic curve, Fibonacci numbers and the growth form of an ancient ammonite sea creature.

"A great mission explored through excellent architecture. Too bad all of our educational buildings cannot have this clarity of purpose and directness of execution."

–Frank Locker

 

 

The Mawson Centre
Mawson Lakes, South Australia

Lend Lease Community Development, Lend Lease Communities
Alternative Learning Category
Capacity: 1,000+ students
Size: 355,520 sq. feet

Mawson Lakes, a new community near Adelaide, South Australia, integrates living, learning, working and play. The mixed-use development includes a variety of housing types, a primary school, library, university research center, restaurants and shops – all developed with ecologically sensitive water management and solar orientation. Access to a wide range of educational services through university, civic and business partnerships is the key to this model of sustainable development.

"This project shows that learning happens not only within classrooms but that the community itself is the ‘school.’ This richly layered development provides an integrated, mixed-use campus for living, learning, working and playing – it is truly the exemplification of a 21st-century community where the connections between individual elements is as important as the elements themselves."

–Prakash Nair

 

Alpine Prototype Middle Schools
Alpine, Utah, and Lehi, Utah

VCBO Architecture
Capacity: 1,500 students
Size: 187,500 sq. feet, 26-32 acres

PHOTO CREDIT: David Wakely

This project is particularly remarkable in that it provides all of the features of a traditional large district middle school – athletic program, media center, auditorium, cafeteria – in a state with one of the lowest per-student budgets and size allocations, without giving in at any stage to rigid solutions.

"This school is fun. While we could argue the merits of putting 1,500 middle students in one building, we can’t overlook the many positive qualities this submission’s planning and architecture offer. The houses, the open edges of the classrooms, the shared teacher planning areas, the collaborative centers instead of corridors, and the metaphorical math in the architecture of the commons are all noteworthy. This project does, however, exhibit the classic middle school tragic flaw: the ‘special’ learning areas, especially art and technology ed, are dissociated from core learning, thus limiting integrated learning programs."

–Frank Locker

"An outstanding project. If you have to house 1,500 middle schoolers, then this is the way to do it – break it all down, open it all up – I have my identity, my group and constant opportunity to collaborate with others."

–John Mayfield

"The collaboration area, reached from classrooms via glass, roll-up doors, provides flexible learning space. Organization of ‘houses’ provides more personal scale for students. Thoughtful, sensitive design shows that cost isn’t a critical variable regarding ultimate results."

–Victoria Bergsagel

 

PHOTO CREDIT : Tom Bonner

Berkeley High School
Berkeley, Calif.

ELS Architecture
Capacity: 3,000 students
Size: 86,250 sq. feet

Goals for a new school complex were defined in a series of workshops, including the idea that students needed ‘a third place’ other than home or classes, open day and night. A student union could reach out to all students for hanging out, studying, playing at the gym or having a dance, getting something to eat and library use. Internet access would be available from any space. Students could learn real-life skills by helping with food preparation or administration. Shared public use of facilities would be encouraged on weekends or after-hours.

"Given the constraints of a very large school in an urban context, this project provides some valuable ideas regarding the critical provision of informal, authentic ‘third places’ such as the student union for students that have been virtually ignored in today’s conventional school design."

–Jeff Lackney

 

 

 

 

High Tech High-Los Angeles
Los Angeles

Berliner & Associates Architecture
Capacity: 325 students
Size: 27,000 sq. feet, 1 acre

This school is the only Los Angeles Unified School District high school designed specifically to train students for the high-technology careers. Funded through a public-private partnership, the school is a combination of new construction and the complete renovation of two underused structures on an existing high school campus. Classrooms support a project-based curriculum and contain separate project rooms – glass-enclosed areas that facilitate small-group projects and provide space to store works-in-progress, eliminating the need for tear-down and set-up between classes.

"This design for project-based instruction shows how it was spatially conceived and makes evaluations on behavior changes. Internal spaces are very well integrated. Walking within the school’s spaces allows surprise, seeing something new going on. Good relationship between open and closed spaces."

–Mariza Alves

"The integration between internal and external learning spaces is very convincing and seems to offer students real environments where learning can occur outside the classroom setting."

–Peter Jamieson

 

Assisi Catholic College
Queensland, Australia

Bertoldi Architect Pty. Ltd.
Growing to become a P-12 educational facility in 2009
Capacity: 1,440 max.
Size: 35,833 sq. feet, 27.9 acres

Of particular significance is the unique connection of traditional specialist subject disciplines in the middle years. These are consolidated into one building – the Middle Years Technology Centre. In MYTEC, the instructional areas, design technology, art studio, food technology, science laboratory, digital media, and two portfolio development rooms are in effect "alcoves for learning." These are clustered around and open onto a centrally located shared common area.

"Constructivist learning as the basis of a P-12 program, and a ‘hands-on’ learning center as the first phase of construction. And in a Catholic school, to boot. This educational attitude should be a role model for schools around the world! The facility is a role model as well: the spilling out of learning spaces into the ‘market’ offers the hope of integration of curriculum."

–Frank Locker

"A project that will be built by phases – right now it concerns a technology centre that is conceived and designed to stimulate a co-operative learning across the different subjects, with flexibility. The resulting architecture, with its learning street or covered market, has a real character and makes a feeling of learning an easy and enjoyable activity."

–Rodolfo Almeida

 

Greenman Elementary School
Aurora, Ill.

Design Architect: Architecture for Education Inc.
Architect of Record: Cordogan Clark & Associates Inc.
Pre K-5
Capacity: 700 students
Size: 63,000 sq. feet, 4.1 acres

Greenman Elementary is a partnership between the school district and a local private university. It houses district elementary school students and teachers, as well as the university’s Center for Science and Mathematics Methods program. A school-within-a-school organization is developed in a "finger plan." Every two classrooms share an adjoining resource/project area, and every classroom contains a learning wall, bay windows and a private bathroom. The walls between the rooms contain large windows, allowing the hallways to serve as learning spaces. The interior windows give teachers in classrooms the ability to monitor groups of students working in adjacent project areas and hallways.

"The use of varying materials, colors, and geometric shapes bring a rich texture to the spaces. Classroom lavatories for which the students have responsibility is a grand idea."

–Susan Wolff