The Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences Middle School continues the evolution of the school’s urban campus. The building provides educational programming configured vertically to leverage the limited site, enhance pedagogical principles, and connect with the surrounding community. Synthesizing its urban condition and program into a six-story academic volume, the project relates in scale to the mixed-use commercial core along the arterial street. A lower volume, dedicated to athletic activities, mirrors the scale of the residential context.
Classrooms are organized around collaborative learning spaces promoting project-based coursework and cross-disciplinary discovery. Glazing in each classroom create a transparent, porous connection between classroom and collaboration space, enabling learning activities to flow seamlessly between. Collaboration spaces are designed as a series of stepped double-height interior volumes that cascade between floors, enhancing connectivity between all grades within the stacked program and creating opportunities for students to cross paths and interact.
The project reflects the school’s “DNA” of innovation and commitment to a socially and ecologically responsible community where sustainable features foster student engagement. The building creates a new front door with innovative construction techniques, materials, natural light, and an apparent simplicity that challenges the traditional school models.
The Middle School’s urban integration and use of sustainable elements showcases forward thinking educational design in the urban context and exemplifies the school’s pedagogy through a variety of collaborative, educational spaces that support the school’s mission of cultural performance. Given the complexity of the program and the constraints of the site, simplicity is perhaps the project’s strength.
All the information about how to enter the 2020 WAN Awards is here.
We are very happy to offer support so please don’t hesitate to email Georgia, WAN Awards Event Coordinator with any questions at Georgia.Baily@haymarket.com.
Last year more than 40 countries took part in the WAN Awards with strong showings from Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific. And we saw some truly outstanding projects, take a look at the winners from last year here.