Vertical learning community

Pioneering the urban vertical school in Hawaii the essential design question is how to create an integrated learning community in a vertical building? It would be easy to assign a grade per floor and rely upon elevators to move students in the building, but this silo approach does not foster community. Instead the team split grades across a floor and a half with sky lanai connecting floors. These lanai spaces stitch together the building and provide opportunities for outdoor learning adjacent to classrooms, just like at-grade schools, but in the air. Refer to the programming diagrams below.

Sustainable features are integrated into all aspects of the school from on-campus outdoor spaces for the small keiki, podium top plaza and sky lanai to cross and stack effect ventilation to photovoltaic panels to recycled and low VOC material selections.

Design, Jason DeMarco as Project Architect while with WRNS.

Project Details:

Client: State of Hawaii DOE

Construction Budget: $70-90 million as shown

Square Footage: 132,000 sq ft

Program: Pre-K to 5th grade school

Completion Date: TBD

Programmatically the school is composed of three parts: a two-story Pre-K to first grade wing that provides a smaller scale, closer to the ground, learning environment for the smaller keiki surrounding an outdoor play/ learning space just for them; adjacent to this is the tower podium that houses the multi-purpose room, administrative offices, school library and back-of-house functions; above this podium are the classrooms and specialty classrooms for the upper grades. As noted above, each grade is split between two floors joined by a sky lanai. Special education classrooms and break out rooms are evenly distributed throughout the school to facilitate their ease of stepping out of the traditional classroom for additional support before returning again to their peers.