Best K-12 Education, Award of Merit – Excellence in Safety: Bush School - New Upper School Building
The new Bush Upper School is a three-story, 20,000-sq-ft, ultra-efficient facility nestled amongst cedar trees in an environmentally critical steep slope zone. It is the first Passive House school on the West Coast, one of the first net-zero energy schools in the nation and is Salmon Safe Certified.
Cut 20 ft into a steep hillside, the foundation is offset by exterior rigid insulation and surrounded by a network of bioretention planters and shoring walls with board-formed concrete finishes that flank the new entrance. The high-ceiling basement level contains a multi-purpose auditorium, restrooms, storage, equipment mezzanine, elevator stop for ADA access to the upper campus and a catering kitchen secured by a 500-lb, 2-in.-thick mass ply panel (MPP) barn door with school scenes etched upon it. A heavy-timber stairway takes you to each of the two primary learning levels, which provide seminar style classrooms with break-out spaces.