����͵��

Banneker High School is one of the highest-performing public schools in the District of Columbia.

Its mission is to prepare students for success in higher education and nearly 100% of its students have graduated and been accepted to college. These students are often the first in their families to attend college, traveling from across the city to attend the school. Accordingly, the new building is designed to foster their strong culture, provide state-of-the-art labs and instructional spaces, and to create a “collegiate ambiance” that will provide a transitional environment to the next step in a life of inspired learning. To create this ambiance, the Learning Commons – a dynamic and collaborative evolution of the library – became the heart of the school. Every level of this vertical, four-story campus engages the Learning Commons, providing formal and informal places to gather, socialize, and collaborate.

To help create the highest-performing learning environment possible for these students, our team benchmarked their existing building on numerous Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) factors, and leveraged the Net Zero Energy (NZE) process to create an environment that not only conserves resources, but enhances the design of the environment – including daylight, acoustics, thermal comfort, and indoor air quality – that we know foster enhanced educational outcomes. To help achieve this goal, and to help focus the design on the health and well-being of the students, the project also pursued the new Integrated Health credit within LEED. Particular emphasis was placed on design opportunities that may help reduce the stress levels of such high-achieving students.

As the site is also a valued community open space, several existing and cherished features, including a dog park and a skate park, were integrated into the plan to create a campus that is truly the center of its community.