Washington Liberty High School Annex
Arlington, Virginia
This comprehensive renovation for Arlington Public Schools converted an existing 55,000-square-foot municipal building into a state-of-the-art high school annex. The project expands to the capacity of the current Washington-Liberty High School on the same campus. The project provided flexible space for the school system. Programming includes workout space, wet lab space, breakout rooms, office space, alterations to the building envelope, and replacement glazing systems.
Awards | Press
2023 AIA NOVA Award for Merit in Historic Architecture
2023 Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Award
The core elements of the original building were concentrated against the interior radius of the floor plan. By breaking these core elements apart and moving them further inward on the plan, Studio Twenty Seven Architecture increased building floor plate efficiency and allowed for more generous and direct paths for sightlines and natural light.
As demonstrated in our past work for ACPS, Studio Twenty Seven Architecture has played a critical role during the contract administration portion of projects. We use the required contract management software for all construction phase documentation and correspondence. The Arlington Education Center project demonstrates from our experience that we recognize construction activities are often a higher level of intensity when school is out of session, and we know to plan accordingly.
One of the challenges of converting an office building to school use is the overabundance of glazing found in an office building. An office building has only a single program. While it may suit an office building to have all elevations of the building fully glazed, the same does not make sense for a school. The new glazing system includes a graduated frit pattern that offsets the solar gain on each elevation of the building.
