MacConnell Award Winners Named at LearningSCAPES 2016

PHILADELPHIA — Entries from the 2016 James D. MacConnell Award winner and finalists were on display at the Association for Learning Environments (A4LE) LearningSCAPES 2016 Conference in Philadelphia earlier this month.

The James D. MacConnell Award recognizes a comprehensive planning process for educational facilities to serve the needs of students, staff and the community to facilitate student achievement. The jury conducted on-site interviews of students, school staff, community stakeholders and the design team to evaluate projects that had the best planning processes. The winner and two finalists include:

Winner: Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet Campus

Located in Bridgeport, Conn., the Bridgeport Public Schools’ Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet Campus was designed to accommodate a high-quality science- and technology-related curriculum, while also reducing and preventing racial, ethnic and economic isolation of public school students in the region. As such, Hartford, Conn.-based JCJ Architecture designed three, 500-student STEM high schools to be co-located within a single building. After three years of operation, nearly 100 percent of students in the school’s first senior class graduated in spring 2016.

Finalist: Cherry Crest Elementary School

Designed by Seattle-based NAC Architecture, Cherry Crest Elementary School was a 79,950-square-foot replacement elementary school project located on a 10-acre site in Bellevue, Wash. Five acres of the site was dedicated to green space only, adding to the school district’s energy-efficiency goals. The school features 85 geothermal wells that provide heating and cooling as well as super-insulated walls and a rooftop array of 434 photovoltaic panels providing 100 kW of power. Considered to be one of the greenest schools in Washington, it opened just in time for the 2012-13 school year.

Finalist: Robert R. Shaw Center for STEAM

The 24,000-square foot Robert R. Shaw Center for STEAM is a multi-use facility that builds interaction across Katy Independent School District in Katy, Texas. Designed by Stantec, with offices in Houston, the building features eight “project bays” that serve as design-build space for activities related to science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM). The $5 million facility is used by K-12 students and was completed in January 2014.