The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on Architecture for Education (CAE) has selected 12 projects for this year’s CAE Education Facility Design Awards. The program honors educational facilities that the jury believes should serve as an example of a superb place in which to learn, furthering the client's mission, goals, and educational program while demonstrating excellence in architectural design.
The 12 winners are listed below.
Henderson-Hopkins School; Baltimore
Rogers Partners
Associate Architect: Architects+Urban Designers
Award of Excellence
The Henderson-Hopkins School is the first new Baltimore public school in nearly 30 years. A 125,000-square-foot K-8 partnership school and early childhood center run by Johns Hopkins University, Henderson-Hopkins is a progressive learning environment for children and a laboratory for the next generation of educators.
The school is a cluster of “containers for learning” inspired by East Baltimore’s row houses, stoops, and social civic spaces. Through its intentionally porous, safe, urban plan, and the craftsmanship of light, materiality, and performance, its design respects history and supports the future of education and of its neighborhood.
Mundo Verde Bilingual Public Charter School; Washington, DC
Studio Twenty Seven Architecture
Award of Excellence
Mundo Verde is a bilingual, sustainability-focused public charter school located in the District of Columbia. The school’s curriculum is based on expeditionary learning, where students learn through the critical exploration of complex issues.
Awarded a shuttered 1920s-era school building and site by the District in 2013, Mundo Verde had a direct question for the design team: “How can this redevelopment and addition project teach our students to be global stewards?” From the renovation of the existing building to the precise detailing and material efficiency of the Pre-K annex, the entire campus is designed to foster learning through environmental living.
Regional Plant 2 Teaching Facility, Wake Technical Community College; Raleigh, N.C.
Clark Nexsen
Award of Excellence
Located at the entrance of Wake Tech Community College on a wooded site, the Regional Plant Teaching Facility creates a gateway to the campus and symbolizes the merging of technology, education and sustainability.
Although the building’s program is composed of spaces to house heating and cooling equipment, it also serves as an educational facility for teaching students and the public about energy-efficient building systems. A simple rectilinear glass and steel box with a perforated metal screen layer houses, screens and displays the technology and creates a unique educational space for the college.
Regional Plant
Richard Ivey Building, Richard Ivey School of Business, Western University; London, Ontario, Canada
Hariri Pontarini Architects
Award of Excellence
The vision for the Richard Ivey Building was creation of a vibrant, unified campus that would attract the best students and faculty, express the school’s global identity, and celebrate Western University itself.
Located on the western edge of the university’s campus at an active corner, the Richard Ivey Building is a beacon, a signifier of the school’s flagship status. Echoing the architecture of Western University's campus and the adjacent Brescia College, the solid masonry on the exterior conveys the traditional materiality of the University’s Gothic architecture, making it a modern building rooted in tradition.
Seton Hill Arts Center, Seton Hill University; Greensburg, Pa.
designLAB architects
Associate Architect: BSHM Architects
Award of Excellence
Seton Hill University’s new performing and visual arts facility is an interdisciplinary arts center that connects the local community with members of the university. Channeling the Pittsburgh area’s industrial heritage, the steel frame and metal-clad building was conceived as a “Factory for the Arts.” The project features an outdoor Arts Yard where the making of 3D arts is visible from the commercial Main Street in its host city of Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
The four-level facility features a full complement of studio spaces for traditional disciplines like painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, dance and theater, along with tech-heavy digital and graphic arts. The new building is an economic catalyst for the city’s cultural district, drawing local artists, gallery observers, and performing arts attendees to support and critique student work.
Vol Walker Hall Renovation & The Steven L. Anderson Design Center, University of Arkansas; Fayetteville, Ark.
Marlon Blackwell Architects
Associate Architect: Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects
Award of Excellence
Vol Walker Hall and the addition of the Steven L. Anderson Design Center for the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas is a complex but resolute hybrid of a historic restoration and a contemporary insertion and expansion.
Post-tensioned concrete and Indiana limestone honor the weight and substance of the historic, while the west-facing fritted glass brise-soleil and steel curtainwall create a contemporary figure. The overall design is a didactic model, establishing a tangible discourse between past and present, while providing state of the art facilities for 21st century architectural and design education.
Dwight-Englewood School Hajjar STEM Center; Englewood, N.J.
Gensler
Award of Merit
The new 28,000-square-foot building at the Dwight-Englewood School, an independent day school for PK-12, is the realization of a multi-year exploration and visioning process. It is also the embodiment of the school’s mission and growing STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) curriculum.
The technically innovative, highly sustainable, programmatically energized, and contextually sensitive solution equals an expanded campus that seeks to unify Dwight-Englewood's community of faculty, students, and administration and create a center of excellence around this ever-important pedagogy.
Fayetteville High School Addition and Renovation; Fayetteville, Ark.
Hight Jackson Associates
Associate Architect: DLR Group and Marlon Blackwell Architects
Award of Merit
To maintain its competitive advantage in academics, Fayetteville Public Schools tasked the design team to strategically restructure its high school education program into a small learning community (SLC) model. At more than 500,000 square feet, this project is the largest civic project in Fayetteville over the past 50 years. It constitutes an addition and a massive modernization of aged buildings through a 36-month phased approach, allowing for continuous operation of the school during construction.
Fayetteville High School features greatly simplified circulation and improved security around a public entry plaza and a pedestrian green street that mediates between the first and second phase and the 85-foot change in topography across the site. SLCs are designed with core learning studios that feature discovery, project-based learning, digital and applied learning labs to foster collaboration. Distributed administration, resource centers and dining allow students to spend a majority of their day within their SLC. The addition features abundant glass and overlooks a new landscaped street that creates a collegiate campus feel reflective of the school's ties to the University of Arkansas.
GateWay Community College Integrated Education Building; Phoenix
SmithGroupJJR
Award of Merit
GateWay Community College, located centrally in the metropolitan Phoenix area, has created a new all-in-one 122,000-gross-square-foot facility for their urban campus. The Integrated Education Building (IEB) is centrally located on campus and meshes an entire new campus of functions into a single three-story structure.
The IEB provides a new student services center, learning center and community library, instructional labs, classrooms, faculty offices and a large community-oriented 200-seat multi-purpose room. The project both transforms the campus and provides metamorphic momentum for a historically blighted and under-valued part of the city.
Harvard Business School, Tata Hall; Boston
William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc.
Award of Merit
Sited on the banks of the Charles River, Tata Hall at Harvard Business School creates a porous edge to the campus and a new sense of openness between the school and the city of Boston. Dedicated to the Executive Education program, the building groups students into clusters of eight-person suites, each with a common space for work, collaboration and presentations.
Indian Springs School; Birmingham, Ala.
Lake|Flato Architects
Associate Architect: Architecture Works
Award of Merit
Founded in 1952 on the motto, “Learning Through Living,” Indian Springs School is a place of exceptional people and purpose. The 350-acre boarding and day school campus, originally planned by the Olmstead Brothers, was functional and serviceable but aging facilities were inhibiting the growth of educational programs and opportunities.
This first phase of a comprehensive master plan includes new academic and administrative buildings and complementary landscapes that create a memorable, meaningful place. The new academic heart of the campus recalls its original vision with a contemporary overlay of teaching methodology, technology, aesthetics and performance that make a unique learning environment—Springsian in every way.
Kennedy Child Study Center; East Harlem, N.Y.
Pell Overton Architects
Award of Merit
Last summer, the 165-family Kennedy Child Study Center relocated to a new home in East Harlem, occupying two floors of a previously un-renovated 1930’s warehouse building. The adaptive reuse of the 25,000-square-foot space presented a number of difficult challenges, including an unusually low ceiling and absence of any natural light.
Consequently, the design of the 16-classroom facility developed around the need to radically transform the existing warehouse into a varied space for learning and engagement, creating a sense of both openness to the surrounding community and continuity between the neighborhood and the individual classroom environments.
The jury for the 2016 Educational Facility Design Awards includes: Karina Ruiz, AIA (Chair), DOWA-IBI Group Architects; Christina Alvarez, Delaware Design Lab HS; Helena L. Jubany, FAIA, NAC/Architecture; Bruce Lindsey, AIA, Washington University in St. Louis; Zachary Neubauer, University of Portland and Steve Ziger, AIA, Ziger/Snead Architects.
See the full release here.
Related Stories
Education Facilities | Mar 15, 2023
DLR Group’s Campus Planning Studio defines new leadership
Linsey Graff named Campus Planning Leader. Krisan Osterby transitions to Senior Planner.
Student Housing | Mar 13, 2023
University of Oklahoma, Missouri S&T add storm-safe spaces in student housing buildings for tornado protection
More universities are incorporating reinforced rooms in student housing designs to provide an extra layer of protection for students. Storm shelters have been included in recent KWK Architects-designed university projects in the Great Plains where there is a high incidence of tornadoes. Projects include Headington and Dunham Residential Colleges at the University of Oklahoma and the University Commons residential complex at Missouri S&T.
University Buildings | Feb 23, 2023
Johns Hopkins shares design for new medical campus building named in honor of Henrietta Lacks
In November, Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine shared the initial design plans for a campus building project named in honor of Henrietta Lacks, the Baltimore County woman whose cells have advanced medicine around the world. Diagnosed with cervical cancer, Lacks, an African-American mother of five, sought treatment at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in the early 1950s. Named HeLa cells, the cell line that began with Lacks has contributed to numerous medical breakthroughs.
K-12 Schools | Feb 18, 2023
Atlanta suburb opens $85 million serpentine-shaped high school designed by Perkins&Will
In Ellenwood, Ga., a southeast suburb of Atlanta, Perkins and Will has partnered with Clayton County Public Schools and MEJA Construction to create a $85 million secondary school. Morrow High School, which opened in fall 2022, serves more than 2,200 students in Clayton County, a community with students from over 30 countries.
Multifamily Housing | Feb 16, 2023
Coastal Construction Group establishes an attainable multifamily housing division
Coastal Construction Group, one of the largest privately held construction companies in the Southeast, has announced a new division within their multifamily sector that will focus on the need for attainable housing in South Florida.
Sustainability | Feb 9, 2023
University of Southern California's sustainability guidelines emphasize embodied carbon
A Buro Happold-led team recently completed work on the USC Sustainable Design & Construction Guidelines for the University of Southern California. The document sets out sustainable strategies for the design and construction of new buildings, renovations, and asset renewal projects.
Giants 400 | Feb 9, 2023
New Giants 400 download: Get the complete at-a-glance 2022 Giants 400 rankings in Excel
See how your architecture, engineering, or construction firm stacks up against the nation's AEC Giants. For more than 45 years, the editors of Building Design+Construction have surveyed the largest AEC firms in the U.S./Canada to create the annual Giants 400 report. This year, a record 519 firms participated in the Giants 400 report. The final report includes 137 rankings across 25 building sectors and specialty categories.
University Buildings | Feb 8, 2023
STEM-focused Kettering University opens Stantec-designed Learning Commons
In Flint, Mich., Kettering University opened its new $63 million Learning Commons, designed by Stantec. The new facility will support collaboration, ideation, and digital technology for the STEM-focused higher learning institution.
University Buildings | Feb 7, 2023
Kansas City University's Center for Medical Education Innovation can adapt to changes in medical curriculum
The Center for Medical Education Innovation (CMEI) at Kansas City University was designed to adapt to changes in medical curriculum and pedagogy. The project program supported the mission of training leaders in osteopathic medicine with a state-of-the-art facility that leverages active-learning and simulation-based training.
Giants 400 | Feb 6, 2023
2022 Reconstruction Sector Giants: Top architecture, engineering, and construction firms in the U.S. building reconstruction and renovation sector
Gensler, Stantec, IPS, Alfa Tech, STO Building Group, and Turner Construction top BD+C's rankings of the nation's largest reconstruction sector architecture, engineering, and construction firms, as reported in the 2022 Giants 400 Report.
