STATUS
COMPLETED
CLIENT
Arlington Public Schools
TYPOLOGY
Education, Interiors
SIZE M2/FT2
16,722 / 180,000
SHARE
The Heights School opens as a cascade of green terraces fanning from a central axis, addressing the academic needs of Arlington’s two county-wide school programs while forming a vertical community within its dense urban context. By merging two existing secondary schools – the H-B Woodlawn Program and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Program into a new 180,000 sq ft building, the school expects enrollment of up to 775 students.
BIG worked closely with Arlington Public Schools (APS), WRAP (West Rosslyn Area Plan), and the Arlington community, to ensure that the design supports both H-B Woodlawn’s focus on trust and self-governance and Shriver’s extensive resources for students with specialized educational needs. The Heights has been designated LEED Gold certification.
The Heights building is situated within a compact urban site bounded by roads on three sides and a portion of Rosslyn Highlands Park. Conceived as a stack of five rectangular floorplates that rotate around a fixed pivot point, BIG maintains the community feeling and spatial efficiencies of a one-story school.
The Heights Building Site
— The compact urban site is bounded by roads on three sides. Along 18th Street, the site shares a common edge with Rosslyn Highlands Park.
Site Objective
— A vertical stack of classroom bars stretches across the center of the site, creating a protective barrier between the aesthetic field and the busy urban corridor of Wilson Boulevard.
Cascading Terraces
— To create green space by the classrooms, the bars rotate around a single hinge point which creates 4 terraces from the education spaces to the recreation field. The first terrace is public when school is closed.
Public Spaces Towards Wilson
— A generous lobby invites the public inside for community-oriented programs hosted throughout the building. The gymnasium and auditorium are centrally located to the lobby.
In-Between Spaces
— Larger communal spaces, incl. cafeteria, library, and music rooms are easily accessible from the central space. The library is above the gym and the music rooms are above the theater.
Manipulated Ground Plane
— The ground plane manipulations create circulation and daylight benefits for the school. Two sunken courtyards provide naturally lit outdoor spaces while the entrances serve as small public parks.
Rotating Stair Connection
— A rotating staircase cuts through the interior to connect the four-tiered terraces, allowing students to circulate outside, forging a stronger bond between the neighborhood and the school.
Urban Terraced Landscape
— The terraces provide different scales of activity, from large gatherings to class-size discussions, giving the opportunity for an urban school to have a 1-story feel.
Manipulated Ground Plane
— The ground plane manipulations create circulation and daylight benefits for the school. Two sunken courtyards provide naturally lit outdoor spaces while the entrances serve as small public parks.
Green terraces above each floor become an extension of the classroom, creating an indoor-outdoor learning landscape for both students and teachers – an educational oasis rather than a traditional school setting. A rotating central staircase cuts through the interior of the building to connect the four-tiered terraces, allowing students to circulate outside and forge a stronger bond between the neighborhood and the school. While the upper terraces are more suitable for intimate classes and quiet study areas, the spacious first terrace and 18,700 sq ft recreation field also serve as public event venues for school-wide and neighborhood activities.
From Wilson Boulevard, students, teachers and staff are greeted by a triple-height lobby with stepped seating that doubles as an indoor gathering space for both student assemblies and public meetings. Many of the school’s common spaces, including the 400-seat auditorium, main gymnasium, library, reception, and cafeteria are centrally located and directly adjacent to the lobby.
Easy accessibility to the community-oriented programs hosted in the school encourages public interaction throughout the building, creating a welcoming environment while heightening the visual connectivity between the shared spaces. Other specialized student spaces include an art studio, science and robotic labs, music rehearsal rooms, and two performing arts theaters.
The classroom bars serve as the primary organizing elements, surrounding a central vertical core that contains the elevators, stairs and bathrooms. As students enter from the central staircase, they are greeted by an expanded gradient of the color spectrum: each classroom bar is defined by its own color, combining intuitive wayfinding with a vibrant social atmosphere from the ground to the sky.
The Shriver Program providing special education for students aged 11 to 22 occupies two floors of the building accessible from the ground floor, and has specialized spaces dedicated to support APS’ Functional Life Skills program as well as privacy and ease of accessibility; the gymnasium, courtyard, occupational physical therapy suite, and sensory cottage are designed to aid in sensory processing.
The Heights’ exterior is materialized in a graceful white glazed brick to unify the five volumes and highlight the oblique angles of the fanning classroom bars, allowing the sculptural form, and the energy and activity of the inside to take center stage. Keeping the surrounding neighborhood and former Wilson School in mind, the building’s material palette pays homage to the historical architecture of Old Town Alexandria.
GROUND FLOOR PLAN
PLAN LEVEL 1
PLAN LEVEL 2
PLAN LEVEL 3
PLAN LEVEL 4
ROOF TOP PLAN
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Aran Coakley Beat Schenk Benjamin Caldwell Bjarke Ingels Daniel Sundlin Douglass Alligood Jan Leenknegt Julie Kaufman Ricardo Palma Prieto Shu Zhao Thomas Christoffersen Adam Sheraden Amina Blacksher Anton Bashkaev Bennett Gale Benson Chien Cadence Merrie Bayley Cristian Lera Silva Daisy Zhong Deb Campbell Elena Bresciani Elnaz Rafati Evan Rawn Francesca Portesine Ibrahim Salman Jack David Gamboa Janice Rim Ji-Young Yoon Jin Xin Josiah Poland Kam Chi Cheng Ku Hun Chung Margherita Gistri Maria Sole Bravo Mark Rakhmanov Mateusz Rek Maureen Rahman Nicholas Potts Pablo Costa Fraiz Robyne Some Romea Muryn Saecheol Oh Sean Franklin Seth Byrum Sidonie Muller Simon David Tammy Teng Terrence Chew Tony-Saba Shiber Valentina Mele Vincenzo Polsinelli Zachary Walters Ziad Shehab
AWARDS
American Institute of Steel Construction IDEAS2 National Award for Steel Construction in the $75-200 million category, 2021
DESIGNArlington Award of Excellence, 2019
Washington Building Congress Craftsmanship Award, Winner in Structural Steel Framing, 2019
American Planning Association National Capital Area Chapter Award, Outstanding Implemented Plan, 2018
COLLABORATORS
Leo A Daly
Robert Silman Associates
Interface Engineering
Gordon
Theatre Projects
Jaffe Holden
Faithful+Gould
GHD
Hopkins Food Service
GeoConcepts
Haley Aldrich Inc.
The Sextant Group
Tillotson Design Associates
EHT Traceries
Lerch Bates
Sustainable Design Consulting
