Project name: International College Classroom Building
Project location: Beirut, Lebanon
Firm name: Flansburgh Architects with Khatib & Alami
Jury comments: Located on a dense urban campus, the three buildings of this cheerful new elementary school are adjacent to existing middle and upper schools. The buildings form a courtyard that extends a park-like green space at the campus center. Stairways, elevated walkways, and terraces connect campus gates on different urban streets and link the upper and lower campuses. Ample floor-to-ceiling glass maintains a constant visual connection with the Mediterranean Sea while flooding the interior of nearly every space with natural daylight. A detailed, measurable sustainability strategy appears to be in place. The design is unexpectedly elegant for its program, but it’s hard to know what is typical in Beirut.
Client: International College
Contractor: MAN Enterprise
Consultants: EcoConsulting; D. G. Jones & Partners
