Aberdeen High School, located in Aberdeen, Washington, has been awarded a 2009 American School & University Educational Interiors Showcase Gold Citation for outstanding interior design.

The jury, which comprised school administrators and AIA-member architects, noted that the design featured “excellent reuse of salvaged materials, which are displayed in a meaningful way.” NAC|Architecture thoughtfully incorporated reclaimed elements of the campus’s historic Weatherwax Building, which had been destroyed by fire, in its design of the replacement school.

“This award belongs to the community, who rallied behind construction of a new school following the devastating fire that gutted the original, landmark building,” explains NAC|Architecture Associate Principal Malcolm Jollie, who served as principal-in-charge of the project. “We were inspired by the public’s passion to preserve and celebrate Aberdeen’s heritage in the new school.”

The Academic Instructional Center at Western Washington University has won the American Institute of Architects Washington Council’s Civic Design Honor Award, its highest recognition. The award was presented to Executive Architect NAC|Architecture and their teammate, Design Architect Opsis Architecture, at this year’s award celebration.

Jury members indicated that projects they recognized with awards “provide a seamless integration of community purpose with beautiful architecture and a transparency that allows for a connection to the environment and vibrant natural light.”

“We are gratified to be accorded this tribute for creatively integrating the community’s need for inspiring space, with sustainability and demanding functionality in this technologically challenging higher-education project, and thank our colleagues at Western Washington University for giving us the opportunity to help shape the future of their campus environment,” said Bruce Blackmer, FAIA, president and CEO of NAC|Architecture.

Little Cedars Elementary School, located in Snohomish, Washington, has been awarded a 2009 Learning By Design Citation of Excellence for outstanding educational facility design. Judges were impressed with the integration of Little Cedars’ learning areas, noting that they are “at ease” with the rest of the building’s design and the external landscape. Judges also remarked, “The sustainable elements of this 68,000-square-foot school have been refined into an exciting learning solution.”

Cavelero Mid High School in Lake Stevens, Washington, was recently honored with a 2009 Citation from the National School Boards Association and a 2009 Honorable Mention from Learning By Design. A National School Boards Association jury member commented, “This bold design embraces the needs of the educational program. … Truly functional and aesthetically pleasing, this structure will accommodate reconfiguration of the educational plan for many years. ” These thoughts were echoed by jurors of the Learning By Design award when they remarked how the “building’s flexible configuration accommodates a variety of learning models through the creation of four two-story, personalized learning centers.”

In addition, Cavelero Mid High School, which was designed by NAC|Architecture, was named a finalist for the Council of Educational Facility Planners International James D. MacConnell Award, which recognizes an outstanding, comprehensive planning process, assessing how well a school facility supports the academic program of the school district. The school was also named a semifinalist for the 2009 WAN Education Award presented by World Architecture News; this annual award recognizes excellence in design on a global scale.

Woodrow Wilson High School, Phase I, in Tacoma, Washington, has won an International Design Award in Architecture, taking Third Place in the Institutional Design category. The annual International Design Awards recognize architects and designers of interiors, fashion, products and graphics.

Hossein Farmani, IDA founder: “The International Design Awards remain focused on recognizing visionary artists spanning all disciplines of design. … The innovation and quality of this year’s submissions have truly raised the bar for future competitions.”

The Spokane Falls Community College sn-w’ey’-mn Building has earned LEED Gold certification, making it the first community college building in Washington state to attain this status as well as the first LEED building constructed on a Community Colleges of Spokane (CCS) campus. The original goal of CCS was to achieve LEED Silver; with significant contributions by the owner, contractor and the design team this project exceeded their goal and obtained 43 points – well beyond the 39 points needed for LEED Gold.

The 70,000-square-foot building, housing the Business and Social Science departments, is the first new building on the Spokane Falls Community College campus in nearly two decades. The multitude of sustainable attributes integrated into the design provide a new, more environmentally sensitive direction for the extensive expansion currently underway on two of CCS’s primary campuses.