Project Details
- Project Name
- Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences Middle School
- Architect
- LMN Architects
- Client/Owner
- Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Project Types
- Education
- Project Scope
- New Construction
- Size
- 69,900 sq. feet
- Awards
- 2023 AIA Architecture Award 2023
- Shared by
- Madeleine D'Angelo
- Project Status
- Built
This project was selected as a winner in AIA's 2023 Architecture Awards. This article first appeared in the May/June 2023 issue of ARCHITECT.
What do you do when faced with limited space in a crowded city? Build up, of course. That’s the approach local firm LMN Architects took when designing the home of the Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences Middle School, a 69,900-square-foot building in the heart of Capitol Hill. The school stretches six stories high, with a gym, administration offices, music classrooms, and a makerspace composing the lower floors, and additional classrooms upstairs. There’s even a rooftop athletic field, a clever, space-saving solution that gives students the chance to play in the open air without having to leave the school.
Beyond programming, the LMN team also paid close attention to sustainability, incorporating features that reflect the school’s commitment to a socially and ecologically responsible community. Heating and cooling systems rely on solar exposure and natural ventilation, helping the building use 64% less energy than comparable structures, while sunshades limit the heat in warmer months. Glazed windows let in ample daylight but also look out on the neighborhood, connecting students with their bustling urban community.
An abridged version of the below paragraph appeared in the May/June 2021 issue of ARCHITECT as part of expanded coverage of the 2021 AIA Interior Architecture Awards.
By Ian Volner
For the Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences Middle School, hometown firm LMN Architects has demonstrated once again its knack for celebrating everyday spaces. Situated at the meeting point of prominent commercial and residential districts—Capitol Hill and Cherry Hill—the school had to fulfill the prerequisites for a modern-day academic environment, hit ambitious energy-efficiency targets, and retain a sense of easygoing hipness suitable to its urban surrounds. LMN met the challenge with an interior solution that turns the infrastructure of education into a visual journey. From the project’s complex plan, connection between a new building and adjacent existing structures, creation of balcony passageways overlooking learning spaces below, and chromatic scheme enlivened by splashes of red and green, the architects fashioned a spatial ensemble that reveals something new at every turn. They even managed to integrate a rainwater collection system that will allow the Seattle Academy to source its own water as the institution expands, without further taxing the municipal system.
Project Credits
Project: Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences Middle School, Seattle
Client/Owner: Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Architects: LMN Architects. Chris Eidt, AIA, Mette Greenshields, AIA, Chelsea Holman, Wendy Pautz, FAIA, Michael Petersen, Assoc. AIA, Osama Quotah, AIA, Mark Reddington, FAIA, Liliane Sabra, Assoc. AIA, Jeremy Schoenfeld, AIA
Masako Wada, Mona Zellers, Assoc. AIA
Owner’s Representative: Seneca Group.
Contractor: GLY Construction
Civil & Structural Engineer: Coughlin Porter Lundeen Inc.
Landscape Architect: Swift Company
Lighting Design: dark | light consulting, LLC.
M/E/P Engineer: PAE Consulting Engineers, Inc.
Audiovisual & Technology: PAE Consulting Engineers Inc.
Acoustical Engineer: Stantec
Food Service Design: JLR Design
Envelope Consultant: Morrison Hershfield
Playfield Consultant: DA Hogan
Size: 69,900 sq. ft.
Cost: Confidential
MATERIALS AND SOURCES
Acoustical System in Music Room: Conwed Wall Technology Pyramidal Diffusers by Owens Corning
Adhesives, Coatings and Sealants: Dow Corning
Appliances: BOSCH
Bathroom Fixtures: Kohler (water closets), Elkay (sinks)
Carpet: Milliken
Cabinets: Custom Interiors
Ceilings: Armstrong (Lay-In Ceiling Panels)
Manufacturer: ARCHItextures
Product Type: Custom Acoustical Fabric Wrapped Panels
Concrete: CADMAN Heidelberg Cement Group
Countertops: Corian
Exterior Wall Systems: Schuco (Glazed Curtain Wall Framing System FW60.HI.)
Fabrics and Finishes: ARCHItextures (Custom Acoustical Fabric Wrapped Panels)
Flooring in Gymnasium: Robbins Sport Surfaces – Pulastic (Athletic Resilient Flooring)
Furniture: Stylex, Arper, Naughtone, Formology, Aceray, VS, Kimball, Allsteel, and Herman Miller.
Glass: Vitrum Glass Group (Insulated Glass Units)
Gypsum: Georgia-Pacific (GP ToughRock)
HVAC: Daikin Applied (Custom Outdoor Air Handling Unit), Barcol-Air (Radiant Panels – Convection Heating and Cooling Units. BRPE (radiant perimeter extrusion))
Insulation: Owens Corning (EcoTouch Fiberglass Batts)
Kitchen fixtures: TriMark (various fixtures).
Lighting Control Systems: Lutron (Network Lighting Controls)
Lighting in Classrooms: FINELITE (series 16 Indirect/Direct)
Lighting in Gymnasium: AccuLite (EXETER LED E3 Series)
Masonry and Stone: Mutual Materials (Brick Veneer Masonry Units)
Metal in Lunch/Commons: Manufacturer and Installer: Custom Interiors (Custom Decorative Metal Screens)
Paints and Finishes: Sherwin Williams.
Photovoltaics or other Renewables: Itek Energy (60 Cell Solar Module Photovoltaic Panel System)
Plumbing and Water System: Auburn Mechanical (various systems).
Roofing: Carlisle Syntec Systems (Sure-Weld TPO)
Site and Landscape Products: Pacific Earth Works Inc. (plantings and soil materials), Porous Pave Inc. (Permeable Surfacing)
Structural System: Gerdau (Reinforced Concrete Columns and Post Tensioned Concrete Decks), TSP Tombari Structural Products (Long-span steel joists)
Wallcoverings: Forbo (Tackable Wallcovering)
Walls: Custom Interiors (Birch Veneered Appleply Wall Panels)
Windows: Schuco (AWS70.HI, Fixed and Awning)
Doors and Door Hardware: Washington Architectural Hardware (Barclay Dean, Specialty Doors)
Project Description
This project was named a winner in the 2021 AIA Interior Architecture Awards. From the AIA Award submission:
By embracing its tight urban context and vertical organization, the Seattle Academy of the Arts and Sciences has taken the next step in the evolution of the school’s campus. At the corner of Union Street and 13th Avenue in Seattle’s vibrant Capitol Hill neighborhood, this six-story academic volume reflects the scale of its mixed-use commercial surroundings. A lower volume dedicated to the pursuit of athletics mirrors the residences that line 13th Avenue.
The school’s core academic spaces are found on the upper floors of the nearly 70,000-square-foot building. Leveraging often-overlooked rooftop space, the team placed an outdoor playfield there to provide opportunities for physical activity. The spaces below house the entry points, general gathering spaces, administrative offices, a makerspace, and support for music instruction. The lower floors also provide direct connections to the academy’s other buildings, positioning the middle school as a vital point of connection on the campus.
Each grade occupies one entire floor, each featuring classrooms organized around collaborative learning spaces that support the school’s project-based curriculum and provide opportunities for cross-disciplinary discovery. Swaths of glazing in each classroom foster a sense of transparency and porous connection between the spaces, enhancing the natural flow of learning activities.
The collaboration spaces were designed to be a series of double-height volumes cascading between floors. In doing so, the team enhanced connectivity among all grades in the stacked academic program to provide moments of exploration and interactivity beyond the classroom walls. While the collaboration spaces are core to the academy’s mission, they also form the backbone of the school’s architectural expression. Outside, the volumes are wrapped with brick and punctuated by stretches of transparency that correlate directly with the collaboration spaces inside. The transparency stretches down the building until it resolves as a primary gathering space at the intersection.
Throughout the building, sustainable strategies reflect the academy’s commitment to creating a socially and ecologically responsible learning community. Building analysis modeling optimized daylight, solar exposure, and natural ventilation. A multistory classroom bar with a north-south orientation maximizes solar heat gain in the winter, while sunshades limit solar heat gain in the summer. Throughout, indicator lights in every classroom empower students to help manage classroom operation modes.
This new school is configured to offer students a highly supportive learning environment that infuses their education with independence, experimentation, and a dialogue with the energetic urban neighborhood that surrounds it.
