A new K-12 school in Washington, D.C., is the first school in the world to achieve both LEED for Schools Platinum and WELL Platinum, according to its architect, Perkins Eastman.
The John Lewis Elementary School is also the first school in the District of Columbia designed to achieve net-zero energy (NZE). The facility was designed to improve student and teacher performance, health, and well-being, as well as reduce the building’s life-cycle costs. (See more K-12 schools coverage from BD+C.)
The new building replaced an obsolete, brutalist open-plan building. The design retained the best aspects of the open plan, providing flexible space and ease of communication, while improving adjacencies, daylighting, acoustics, security, and outdoor space.
The design emphasizes outdoor recreation and connections with the natural world, known to improve student health and academic achievement. The landscape design embeds natural systems with dynamic play and learning spaces to blur the walls of the classroom. A treasured place for the community, certain school amenities are accessible after-hours and on weekends.
The building offers a series of intimate, child-scaled houses inside and outside that foster collaboration and strong relationships. Designers benchmarked performance against several of the highest performing schools in the country on energy and Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) factors to provide the best daylight, most comfortable, and healthiest learning environments of any school building.
![World's first K-12 school to achieve both LEED for Schools Platinum and WELL Platinum](/sites/default/files/inline-images/john-lewis-elementary-school-14.jpeg)
A high-performance dashboard tracks the building’s energy consumption, showcases the building’s sustainability features, and links to the school’s curriculum to address topics such as social and environmental justice, climate change, and water conservation. Through this interactive, online dashboard, students and teachers can discover how they interact with the building, and how the building and campus influence and are influenced by the larger environment.
The building is paired with Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, concurrently designed, which is also targeting NZE. The excess energy expected to be generated at John Lewis will help Banneker also achieve NZE.
Owner and/or developer: DC Department of General Services | DCPS
Architect: Perkins Eastman DC
MEP engineer: CMTA
Structural engineer: Yun Associates
General contractor/construction manager: MCN Build
Related Stories
K-12 Schools | Jun 5, 2017
PK-8 school will be Denver’s first CHPS-certified building
A “learning stair” will connect the cafeteria to the main level.
K-12 Schools | May 31, 2017
NAC Architecture rolls out ‘Hack Your Classroom’ campaign
In collaboration with room2learn, NAC launched a campaign aimed at crowd-sourcing information on what teachers are doing in their classroom to improve the learning experience.
K-12 Schools | May 16, 2017
The future of schools: Net zero should be the norm
Students are helping drive change by focusing on the future.
K-12 Schools | May 1, 2017
Seattle’s first vertically-oriented middle school breaks ground
The building will provide 74,289 sf of space across its five-story classroom bar.
K-12 Schools | Apr 21, 2017
The stadium effect
School districts that invested in their athletic facilities over the last few years have seen a tremendous increase in student morale and health, growth in campus culture, and excitement within their communities.
K-12 Schools | Apr 7, 2017
Is an alternative project delivery method right for your K-12 school district?
With California’s increasingly busy—and costly—construction market, it’s becoming more difficult to predict costs with a typical design-bid-build delivery method.
K-12 Schools | Mar 9, 2017
The future of education facilities: Creating spaces where learning happens everywhere
The art of designing schools lies not in just understanding what makes a functional classroom, but in how successful we are in creating a wide array of educational options for teachers and students within the school environment.
K-12 Schools | Mar 9, 2017
School branding: The impact on identity and engagement
What is school branding and why is it important? HMC Architects’ James Krueger and Barbara Perez weigh in on the topic.
K-12 Schools | Feb 22, 2017
Through the principal's eyes: A look at K-12 architecture
Anderson-Livsey is a K-5 school located about 30 minutes East of Atlanta in Gwinnett County and has an enrollment of 785 students.
K-12 Schools | Feb 8, 2017
'Fabrication Hall' introduces Wyoming high school students to career paths
The hall offers bountiful natural light with enough space to build large-scale projects.