Architectural Awards and Citations

2010 Shirley Cooper Awards

Cho Benn Holback
Barbara Ingram School for the Arts
Hagerstown, Maryland

The Barbara Ingram School for the Arts began with a gift donation of a historic building for the purpose of creating an arts school in memory of the building owner’s late wife – a former school teacher.

The arts school is located in an urban setting on a tight narrow site and is intended to provide students with a college preparatory curriculum rooted in intense pre-professional training in the arts.

Repurposing an historic building, the magnet arts school was created from a 1903 former Elk’s Club and Henry’s Theater which was expanded by rear and roof top additions. Partnering with the University System of Maryland, the Washington County Library System and the Maryland Theater for core academic classes, located in neighboring buildings, created an environment of high academic expectations.

Going beyond just green building attributes the school is a two sided building that preserves the past and celebrates its mission. In spite of a tight site and narrow floor plates, the Barbara Ingram School maximizes educational opportunities and celebrates its mission through planning, color, oighting, way finding, interconnectivity, partnerships, socially connecting to the city and thorough unique funding and operational models.

Rather than a high school on a large plot of land isolated and fenced from its community it is a welcomed contributor to the downtown; integral to the urban fabric, arts as its emphasis, partnering with others to insure academic achievement in honor of a teacher, the Barbara Ingram School is a welcomed addition to what a high school can be.

SHW Group
Frisco CTE Career & Technical Education Design Model
Frisco , Texas

Located in a tremendously rapid growth school district of over 30,000 students, up from just 3,000 students 12 years ago, the Frisco Career and Technical Education Center accepts students from all six high schools in the district with a goal of ensuring a nurturing, in-depth critical thinking, creative environment for innovation.

The planning involved representatives not only from student and teacher populations, but also the community, local professionals and potential corporate partners. The result “is a truly remarkable, relevant learning environment which serves both college-bound and career-bound students – a place where students are empowered to learn.”

Classrooms and labs are flexible and simulate real world work environments. “The spaces are designed to empower students to drive learning process and use their freedom to explore”.

The central atrium core is an open and inviting hub leading to all interior spaces, including a credit union a store, a restaurant, a deli, and the career center.

Interdisciplinary relationships within the school programs abound, and partnerships with local corporate partners create an opportunity for students to understand the relevance of what they are learning. This project illustrates an exciting program based learning environment that any school system could implement.

2010 Walter Taylor Award 

The use of local materials and local construction labor in the formulation of this project is the origin point for the physically sustainable solution, as well as providing an inspiring, elegant and timeless environment for learning.

Abundant transparency between the four-classroom groups and their associated daylit collaboration spaces encourages opportunities for project-based student-centric learning; transparency between all indoor and outdoor spaces creates abundant daylighting, while connecting students to the gardens outside.

The contrast between the warmth of the wood and the stark concrete tilt-up panels, on both the interior and the exterior, creates an environment for learning that is durable yet welcoming. Also, the integration of sustainable features as learning tools promotes student understanding of natural systems, further delineated by interpretive signage displayed in the main hallway. 

The project’s interactive community planning process has resulted in a facility that is “the pride of the community” including provision of a family center and small community kitchen for afterschool programs.

Thurston is a beautiful, welcoming, responsible, sustainable, contextual, place for children to learn and grow. This project truly embodies a world class standard for design of elementary schools.

2010 Honorable Mention Citations

• Great example of incorporation of sustainable design elements, not only in the building construction but through their inclusion in the educational curriculum
• A warm, welcoming and safe environment with ample natural day-lighting and use of natural materials
• Inclusion of teachers and staff in a collaborative planning process.

Flansburgh Associates
C.W. Morey Elementary School
Lowell, Massachusetts

• Connects to the existing residential neighborhood by utilizing appropriately scaled building elements and materials
• Creates a warm and inviting interior with use of color, and materials; and connects to the exterior with use of natural light
• Provides transparencies to the outdoors to extend learning spaces and within the building between classrooms and interior spaces.

• Presents a strong connection to the existing low socio-economic neighborhood community.
• Provides an example of environmental stewardship by re-using existing materials and utilizing other high performance strategies.
• Creates highly collaborative learning environments to encourage communication and interaction.

• Themed grade houses relate the natural environment around the school to the learning spaces inside
• Learning spaces support the large group, small group, and individual needs of students in a manner that builds on sound relationships
• Outdoor learning incorporates trails and a learning lab through the natural wetlands to facilitate the understanding of physical and social context to the environment