German School Washington

Potomac, Maryland

LEED Gold®

Merit Award, Washington, DC AIA UnBuilt Awards

This unique independent school serves the local German language community in the DC Metro area with a curriculum according to German educational standards. The new building provides modern laboratories and support spaces as the new home for the science department. The building and surrounding landscape design reflect the school’s commitment to healthy and enriching places for learning while keeping utility and maintenance costs at a minimum. The building further synthesizes the school’s science program with the tangible and quantifiable building technology by embracing light, thermodynamics, acoustics, and environmental and hydrological systems as core design parameters.

The completed facility achieved LEED gold level certification. It is the first phase of a two phased campus enlargement to create a stand-alone upper school. The original campus was organized in a series of terraced levels. The new structure bridges two of these levels to provide an accessible route from the lowest terrace to the upper terrace sports field.