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Bard High School Early College DC
Bard High School Early College DC
Washington, DC, United States
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Other Projects by Perkins Eastman
Bard High School Early College DC
Washington, DC, United States
Firm
Type
STATUS
Built
YEAR
2023
SIZE
100,000 sqft - 300,000 sqft
A high-school and college dual-enrollment program, all under one roof.
Bard College’s Early College Program joins together with public school districts to offer a free path to higher education to students in disadvantaged neighborhoods. This program offers students the opportunity to earn enough credits to earn an associate’s degree along with their high school diploma. This allows students to cut the cost of higher education in half by starting college in their junior year. In 2019, this program opened its eighth location in the District of Columbia.
Initially, Bard partnered with DC Public Schools (DCPS) and temporarily opened in a location east of the Anacostia River, looking to establish a permanent location that had a support system dedicated to each student’s success and that was worthy of Bard’s academically challenging program. “We started in a temporary facility, so the space didn’t foster the sense of importance that the institution provided,” student Josiah Best told the local Washington Informer news site. Perkins Eastman DC was then commissioned to design Bard’s new location on a site that had previously been Malcolm X Elementary School—and before that, a community center of the same name—in a structure from the 1960s.
The design team spoke with the schools’ faculty and administrators and interviewed students from Bard’s other campuses in Baltimore and New York during the research phase to learn about their desires and needs in relation to the project. That information was then used as design inspiration for a diverse “learning landscape” of indoor and outdoor spaces that provide a range of educational activities that would fulfill Bard’s mission—“the twin goals of equity and excellence in public education” that depends, in part, on “the creation of a supportive culture within a [single] school structure, thereby avoiding the challenges of dual-enrollment programs,” Bard President Leon Botstein wrote in a forward to the program’s 20th anniversary report, issued in 2022.
The new addition and newly updated DC structure support Bard’s mission with academies within the school emphasize advanced teaching and learning and also now welcome community use and establish new standards for sustainable urban school design within existing facilities.
The Socratic Walk begins at the entrance lobby through a central atrium and connects each floor and academy. It ends at the top floor, where skylights provide natural light through the atrium to illuminate the school’s interior spaces.
The new addition features community spaces including the gym, a stage, and choral and instrumental music spaces. An after-hours walkway between the school and this addition also allows the community access to the fitness room, a general-purpose classroom, and the school store. Also open to the public is the outdoor track and playground, and a path allowing area residents to get to the nearby Congress Heights Metro stop a block away. These amenities are necessary to the school’s program because they provide strong community access and support to the students.
Bard High School Early College DC is an institution that also represents sustainable urban design. The exterior on the older structure was replaced to blend with the school’s urban and residential surroundings while also providing energy-saving shading and insulation. This saved the project a significant amount of money and resources while also enhancing its thermal performance. Before the remodel there was no insulation behind the old brick façade, causing it to be structurally compromised.
The new thermal envelope provides a weather barrier and windows that allow ample daylight into the building’s classrooms, a feature known to help teachers and students thrive.
The team prioritized materials that reduce environmental impact. They took a holistic decarbonization approach by addressing embodied carbon (saving as much of the existing structure as possible) and operational carbon (with energy systems that minimize reliance on fossil-fuel-generated energy).
LEED and WELL standards were used as a design framework to prioritize air quality, daylighting, and acoustic performance. Using these design strategies and efficient HVAC systems, the school is designed to minimize its impact on our planet by targeting LEED Platinum and Net Zero Energy certifications.
Throughout each stage of the process, the team gathered feedback from a School Improvement Team (SIT) comprised of school leadership, staff, teachers, community members, parents, and students. Our team hosted these members of the school and gathered feedback directly from them. The community was also involved in the design, choosing artists to create art representing the school, its history, and its academic and cultural values.
“Bard’s motto is ‘A place to think.’ It is a place where students’ ideas are taken seriously and where they are expected to be serious about their ideas. The experience is rigorous and difficult, our expectations are high, but so is the level of support that we are prepared to provide.” —Vanessa T. Anderson, PhD, Principal of Bard High School Early College DC.
Bard College’s Early College Program joins together with public school districts to offer a free path to higher education to students in disadvantaged neighborhoods. This program offers students the opportunity to earn enough credits to earn an associate’s degree along with their high school diploma. This allows students to cut the cost of higher education in half by starting college in their junior year. In 2019, this program opened its eighth location in the District of Columbia.
Initially, Bard partnered with DC Public Schools (DCPS) and temporarily opened in a location east of the Anacostia River, looking to establish a permanent location that had a support system dedicated to each student’s success and that was worthy of Bard’s academically challenging program. “We started in a temporary facility, so the space didn’t foster the sense of importance that the institution provided,” student Josiah Best told the local Washington Informer news site. Perkins Eastman DC was then commissioned to design Bard’s new location on a site that had previously been Malcolm X Elementary School—and before that, a community center of the same name—in a structure from the 1960s.
The design team spoke with the schools’ faculty and administrators and interviewed students from Bard’s other campuses in Baltimore and New York during the research phase to learn about their desires and needs in relation to the project. That information was then used as design inspiration for a diverse “learning landscape” of indoor and outdoor spaces that provide a range of educational activities that would fulfill Bard’s mission—“the twin goals of equity and excellence in public education” that depends, in part, on “the creation of a supportive culture within a [single] school structure, thereby avoiding the challenges of dual-enrollment programs,” Bard President Leon Botstein wrote in a forward to the program’s 20th anniversary report, issued in 2022.
The new addition and newly updated DC structure support Bard’s mission with academies within the school emphasize advanced teaching and learning and also now welcome community use and establish new standards for sustainable urban school design within existing facilities.
The Socratic Walk begins at the entrance lobby through a central atrium and connects each floor and academy. It ends at the top floor, where skylights provide natural light through the atrium to illuminate the school’s interior spaces.
The new addition features community spaces including the gym, a stage, and choral and instrumental music spaces. An after-hours walkway between the school and this addition also allows the community access to the fitness room, a general-purpose classroom, and the school store. Also open to the public is the outdoor track and playground, and a path allowing area residents to get to the nearby Congress Heights Metro stop a block away. These amenities are necessary to the school’s program because they provide strong community access and support to the students.
Bard High School Early College DC is an institution that also represents sustainable urban design. The exterior on the older structure was replaced to blend with the school’s urban and residential surroundings while also providing energy-saving shading and insulation. This saved the project a significant amount of money and resources while also enhancing its thermal performance. Before the remodel there was no insulation behind the old brick façade, causing it to be structurally compromised.
The new thermal envelope provides a weather barrier and windows that allow ample daylight into the building’s classrooms, a feature known to help teachers and students thrive.
The team prioritized materials that reduce environmental impact. They took a holistic decarbonization approach by addressing embodied carbon (saving as much of the existing structure as possible) and operational carbon (with energy systems that minimize reliance on fossil-fuel-generated energy).
LEED and WELL standards were used as a design framework to prioritize air quality, daylighting, and acoustic performance. Using these design strategies and efficient HVAC systems, the school is designed to minimize its impact on our planet by targeting LEED Platinum and Net Zero Energy certifications.
Throughout each stage of the process, the team gathered feedback from a School Improvement Team (SIT) comprised of school leadership, staff, teachers, community members, parents, and students. Our team hosted these members of the school and gathered feedback directly from them. The community was also involved in the design, choosing artists to create art representing the school, its history, and its academic and cultural values.
“Bard’s motto is ‘A place to think.’ It is a place where students’ ideas are taken seriously and where they are expected to be serious about their ideas. The experience is rigorous and difficult, our expectations are high, but so is the level of support that we are prepared to provide.” —Vanessa T. Anderson, PhD, Principal of Bard High School Early College DC.
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