Designed by Stantec, a Quaker high school is the first in the US to receive WELL Gold certification, which recognizes a commitment to occupants’ health and well-being. Part of the Sandy Spring Friends School (SSFS), the new Pen y Bryn Upper School serves students in grades 9 through 12. Stantec provided architecture, interior design, and engineering for the Upper School.
Founded in 1961, the SSFS campus houses multiple educational buildings for more than 650 students from preschool through 12th grade. SSFS sits on a pastoral 140-acre campus in Maryland, midway between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
Stantec’s simple, elegant design is meant to align with the school’s Quaker values of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship. In the new Upper School, students and teachers have access to a variety of educational environments—traditional classrooms, open or closed collaboration areas, and social spaces—that offer dynamic lighting solutions and flexible, ergonomic furniture.
The design features a biophilic strategy involving both environmental elements and energy solutions. The building extends learning to the outdoors with a covered front porch beside a meditation garden, a sunny maker-space patio, and a roof terrace. Inside, expanses of floor-to-ceiling glass provide daylight and exterior views in the classrooms, collaboration areas, offices, and social areas. The interior also incorporates large areas of ash wood walls created from trees reclaimed onsite.
In addition to its WELL Gold design, the Upper School is engineered as a net zero energy-ready facility: The total amount of energy used by the building annually roughly equals the amount of renewable energy created on the site or nearby.
On the building team:
Owner: Sandy Spring Friends School
Design architect and architect of record: Stantec
MEP engineer: 2RW Consultants
Structural engineer: Keast & Hood
General contractor/construction manager: Keller Brothers, Inc.
Civil engineer: Stantec
Landscape architect: Brian J. Stephenson + Company
WELL building consultant: Delos Living
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Modest recession for education construction
Construction spending for education expanded modestly but steadily through March, while at the same time growth for other institutional construction had stalled earlier in 2009. Education spending is now at or near the peak for this building cycle. The value of education starts is off 9% year-to-date compared to 2008.
| Aug 11, 2010
Las Vegas high school focuses on careers in justice, emergency response
McCarthy Building Cos., St. Louis, recently completed construction on the 130,700-sf Veterans Tribute Career & Technical Academy, a Las Vegas high school that focuses on service career pathways in 911 dispatch training, law enforcement, crime scene analysis, emergency medical training, and computer forensics.
| Aug 11, 2010
Three Schools checking into L.A.'s Ambassador Hotel site
Pasadena-based Gonzalez Goodale Architects is designing three new schools for Los Angeles Unified School District's Central Wilshire District. The $400 million campus, located on the site of the former Ambassador Hotel, will house a K-5 elementary school, a middle school, a high school, a shared recreation facility (including soccer field, 25-meter swimming pool, two gymnasiums), and a new publ...
| Aug 11, 2010
7 Keys to Unlocking Energy Efficiency in Schools
Today’s best K-12 schools are embracing the sustainability ethos in their design and construction, and that can mean a healthier, more comfortable indoor environment and improved learning. Some studies contend that ample amounts of daylighting, for example, lead to higher test scores. High-performance HVAC systems that constantly draw fresh air into a classroom seem to help both teachers ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Blue-Light Schoolhouses
Add the explosion in the number of school-aged kids nationally to the glut of huge, vacant stores in many communities and what do you get? Big boxes being turned into schools. For districts facing population pressure, these empty retail buildings can be the key to creating classrooms quickly, and at a significant cost advantage.
| Aug 11, 2010
Great Solutions: Green Building
27. Next-Generation Green Roofs Sprout up in New York New York is not particularly known for its green roofs, but two recent projects may put the Big Apple on the map. In spring 2010, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts will debut one of the nation's first fully walkable green roofs. Located across from the Juilliard School in Lincoln Center's North Plaza, Illumination Lawn will consist ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Dream Fields, Lone Star Style
How important are athletic programs to U.S. school districts? Here's one leading indicator: In 2005, the National Football League sold 17 million tickets. That same year, America's high schools sold an estimated 225 million tickets to football games, according to the American Football Coaches Association.
| Aug 11, 2010
Back to Nature: Can wood construction create healthier, more productive learning environments?
Can the use of wood in school construction create healthier, safer, more productive learning environments? In Japan, there's an ongoing effort by government officials to construct school buildings with wood materials and finishes—everything from floors and ceilings to furniture and structural elements—in the belief that wood environments have a positive impact on students.
| Aug 11, 2010
High School in a Hurry
One of the more compelling arguments for charter schools is their theoretical ability to streamline decision making. Eliminate all those layers of bureaucratic fat that clog the arteries of most public school systems, the argument goes, and decisions can be made to flow much more smoothly, even when it comes to designing and building a major school project.
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Garfield High School, Seattle, Wash.
Renovations to Seattle's historic Garfield High School focused mainly on restoring the 85-year-old building's faded beauty and creating a more usable and modern interior. The 243,000-sf school (whose alumni include the impresario Quincy Jones) was so functionally inadequate that officials briefly considered razing it.
