Designed by Stantec, a Quaker high school is the first in the US to receive WELL Gold certification, which recognizes a commitment to occupants’ health and well-being. Part of the Sandy Spring Friends School (SSFS), the new Pen y Bryn Upper School serves students in grades 9 through 12. Stantec provided architecture, interior design, and engineering for the Upper School.
Founded in 1961, the SSFS campus houses multiple educational buildings for more than 650 students from preschool through 12th grade. SSFS sits on a pastoral 140-acre campus in Maryland, midway between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
Stantec’s simple, elegant design is meant to align with the school’s Quaker values of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship. In the new Upper School, students and teachers have access to a variety of educational environments—traditional classrooms, open or closed collaboration areas, and social spaces—that offer dynamic lighting solutions and flexible, ergonomic furniture.
The design features a biophilic strategy involving both environmental elements and energy solutions. The building extends learning to the outdoors with a covered front porch beside a meditation garden, a sunny maker-space patio, and a roof terrace. Inside, expanses of floor-to-ceiling glass provide daylight and exterior views in the classrooms, collaboration areas, offices, and social areas. The interior also incorporates large areas of ash wood walls created from trees reclaimed onsite.
In addition to its WELL Gold design, the Upper School is engineered as a net zero energy-ready facility: The total amount of energy used by the building annually roughly equals the amount of renewable energy created on the site or nearby.
On the building team:
Owner: Sandy Spring Friends School
Design architect and architect of record: Stantec
MEP engineer: 2RW Consultants
Structural engineer: Keast & Hood
General contractor/construction manager: Keller Brothers, Inc.
Civil engineer: Stantec
Landscape architect: Brian J. Stephenson + Company
WELL building consultant: Delos Living
Related Stories
| Feb 15, 2011
LAUSD commissions innovative prefab prototypes for future building
The LA Unified School District, under the leadership of a new facilities director, reversed course regarding prototypes for its new schools and engaged architects to create compelling kit-of-parts schemes that are largely prefabricated.
| Feb 9, 2011
Gen7 eco-friendly modular classrooms are first to be CHPS verified
The first-ever Gen7 green classrooms, installed at Bolsa Knolls Middle School in Salinas, California, have become the nation's first modular classrooms to receive Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) Verified recognition for New School Construction. They are only the second school in California to successfully complete the CHPS Verified review process.
| Dec 17, 2010
Alaskan village school gets a new home
Ayagina’ar Elitnaurvik, a new K-12 school serving the Lower Kuskikwim School District, is now open in Kongiganak, a remote Alaskan village of less than 400 residents. The 34,000-sf, 12-classroom facility replaces one that was threatened by river erosion.
| Dec 6, 2010
Honeywell survey
Rising energy costs and a tough economic climate have forced the nation’s school districts to defer facility maintenance and delay construction projects, but they have also encouraged districts to pursue green initiatives, according to Honeywell’s second annual “School Energy and Environment Survey.”
| Nov 29, 2010
New Design Concepts for Elementary and Secondary Schools
Hard hit by the economy, new construction in the K-12 sector has slowed considerably over the past year. Yet innovation has continued, along with renovations and expansions. Today, Building Teams are showing a keener focus on sustainable design, as well as ways to improve indoor environmental quality (IEQ), daylighting, and low-maintenance finishes such as flooring.
| Nov 23, 2010
Honeywell's School Energy and Environment Survey: 68% of districts delayed or eliminated improvements because of economy
Results of Honeywell's second annual “School Energy and Environment Survey” reveal that almost 90% of school leaders see a direct link between the quality and performance of school facilities, and student achievement. However, districts face several obstacles when it comes to keeping their buildings up to date and well maintained. For example, 68% of school districts have either delayed or eliminated building improvements in response to the economic downturn.
| Nov 3, 2010
Designs complete for new elementary school
SchenkelShultz has completed design of the new 101,270-sf elementary Highlands Elementary School, as well as designs for three existing buildings that will be renovated, in Kissimmee, Fla. The school will provide 48 classrooms for 920 students, a cafeteria, a media center, and a music/art suite with outdoor patio. Three facilities scheduled for renovations total 19,459 sf and include an eight-classroom building that will be used as an exceptional student education center, a older media center that will be used as a multipurpose building, and another building that will be reworked as a parent center, with two meeting rooms for community use. W.G. Mills/Ranger is serving as CM for the $15.1 million project.
| Oct 27, 2010
Grid-neutral education complex to serve students, community
MVE Institutional designed the Downtown Educational Complex in Oakland, Calif., to serve as an educational facility, community center, and grid-neutral green building. The 123,000-sf complex, now under construction on a 5.5-acre site in the city’s Lake Merritt neighborhood, will be built in two phases, the first expected to be completed in spring 2012 and the second in fall 2014.
| Oct 13, 2010
Thought Leader
Sundra L. Ryce, President and CEO of SLR Contracting & Service Company, Buffalo, N.Y., talks about her firm’s success in new construction, renovation, CM, and design-build projects for the Navy, Air Force, and Buffalo Public Schools.
| Oct 12, 2010
Holton Career and Resource Center, Durham, N.C.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Special Recognition. Early in the current decade, violence within the community of Northeast Central Durham, N.C., escalated to the point where school safety officers at Holton Junior High School feared for their own safety. The school eventually closed and the property sat vacant for five years.
