Eastgate Elementary School

1. 2010 Exhibition of School Planning and Architecture Eastgate Elementary School Bellevue, Washington Elementary School Project of Distinction – New Construction NAC|Architecture

2. Eastgate Elementary School

3. Eastgate Elementary School • Parent Drop Off / • Visitor Parking • Entry Plaza • Kindergarten / • Younger Child Play Area • Outdoor Classrooms • Hard Surface / • Older Child Play Area • Field • Buses / Staff Parking • Bus entry garden • Existing Pre-School Building 6 5 4 4 3 4 7 8 2 1 9 The school’s organization into small pavilions enables excellent daylighting and views to the established green edges that surround the site.  The massing, developed in simple two-story forms, expresses the confident quality required of a civic project, while maintaining a fitting scale for the long established residential neighborhood. The scale and quality of the building and the exterior spaces such as the entry plaza and bus entry garden engage the surrounding context with an appropriate urban invitation.

4. Community Environment: Welcoming Entry The main stairway is in a welcoming light-filled foyer, a greeting place for students travelling by bus or dropped off by their parents. Everyone passes through the main entry space celebrating arrival at school.

5. Community Environment: Library as a Hub Overlooking the entry plaza and connecting to the entry foyer, the library is the hub of student activity. When used for community meetings it serves as a comfortable informal gathering and social space. With its views and daylight it has quickly become a favorite spot for district wide administrative meetings.

6. Learning Environment: Small Learning Neighborhoods - Flexible Indoor Classrooms Organized in Small Learning Neighborhoods, the core learning areas are well daylit, sized and designed to accommodate different learning modes, and enjoy the benefits of the surrounding natural quality. Gallery Core Learning Area Shared Small Group / Project Room Typical Small Learning Neighborhood

7. Learning Environment: Outdoor Classrooms Every Small Learning Neighborhood has an adjacent outdoor classroom, providing teachers with the opportunity to take advantage of the mild climate to better engage students in outdoor and kinesthetic learning

8. Physical Environment: Indoor/Outdoor Connection

9. Physical Environment: Landscape as a Teaching Tool The landscape design has been carefully integrated with the architecture for both teaching and experiential purposes. The immediacy, location and selection of plants enables teachers to reference them during relevant poetry readings, and while teaching about the seasons, native plants, and geology. The adjacent exterior classrooms are also used for art instruction allowing students to explore art out of doors.

10. Planning Process: Continuum of Learning A series of small pavilions . . . Eastgate Elementary School is organized into Small Learning Neighborhoods separated by Outdoor Classrooms weaving a continuum of educational spaces across the site. Designed to connect to nature, the school invites the use of the site as a teaching tool. with indoor/outdoor connections . . . enables a continuum of learning.

11. Core Learning Area Informal Activity Space Gallery Display Space Small Group Project Rooms Connection from Classroom to Project Room Connection from Classroom to Exterior Planning Process: Small Learning Neighborhoods The school’s teaching culture implements Small Learning Neighborhoods organized by grade level. Core Learning Areas are flexible and equipped to accommodate a variety of teaching and learning styles. Small group project rooms connect between Core Learning Areas, expansive windows maintain a connection to nature, and a continuous display gallery between the Core Learning Area enhances collaboration and identity within each neighborhood. L-Shaped Small Learning Neighborhood Typical Small Learning Neighborhood

12. 1st Floor Plan Commons Stage Music Gym Typical Learning Neighborhood Small Learning Neighborhood Art Kindergarten Outdoor Classrooms 3 9 9 2 5 5 1 9 7 8 4 10 0 30 FT N

13. 2nd Floor Plan Typical Learning Neighborhood Small Learning Neighborhood Library 1 1 2 10 0 30 FT 3 N

14. Exhibition of School Planning and Architecture 2010 Project Data

15. Exhibition of School Planning and Architecture 2010 Project Details

16. Community Environment: School as a Center of Community The use of wood and views to the tree covered hill beyond dignify the interior of the gym and commons inviting community use. Because of the physical separation of publicly used spaces, multiple community groups can use the school’s facilities simultaneously. Library Gymnasium

17. Learning Environment: Informal Learning Spaces The school design uses ancillary spaces, such as stairways, to provide informal learning spaces for small groups, pull-out individual projects, one-on-one mentoring activities or for other social or relaxation purposes.

18. Learning Environment:Art Fosters Identity Community in the school is enhanced through engagement of students and parents in art. Hand painting of the eagle mascot and a pointillist landscape image on glass panels enrich the school’s identity for both students and the larger community.

19. Planning Process: Sustainable Pioneer The school achieved a vigorous sustainable agenda that continues to mark this building as a district pioneer; ground source heating located below the playfields, the weaving of landscape into the school’s courtyards, and a daylighting scheme that reduces reliance on electricity and gives dramatic views to natural site features.

20. Physical Environment: Slowness of Discovery Materials change scale and color to emphasizeexterior community spaces and interior individual spaces. Landscape provides a counterpoint to the school’s textures and an accent to its experiential approach to teaching. Landscape and building weave together to invite a gradual spatial discovery through physical exploration.