Social and Environmental Impact Advancement Commendation
Project name: Boardwalk Campus
Project overview: The first double Net Zero (energy, water) school in Massachusetts, the 175,000-square-foot Boardwalk Campus, is a new model for sustainable, healthy, and resilient schools for communities across the country. The building houses two separate elementary schools and a preschool.
By creating a new, consolidated campus, the community wanted to provide a more healthy and vibrant learning environment while reducing the impact and operational costs of the facility, allowing more funds to be used to support educational programming.
Located by Fort Pond Brook, the school is carefully sited to minimize impact on the site and celebrate the ecosystem of the adjacent wetlands.
Boardwalk Campus is the first Net Zero school funded by the Massachusetts School Building Authority. The building was built within a typical MSBA-funded school budget but is able to achieve net zero energy and water.
The new boardwalk provides a vital connection across the wetlands that bisect the site, creating learning opportunities for students and the entire community. Educational signage highlighting the project’s sustainability, resilience, and wellness goals reinforces the connection to the natural environment.
Each school is designed to have its own distinct character reflective of its programs and the District’s school choice philosophy. The site’s natural landscape and adjacency to a protected wetland inspired the design, educational graphics, wayfinding, and signage. Ground, vegetation, and sky are the unifying themes for the three schools, which each occupy a different building level, and inspired the forms and colors that define each unique program.
Project location: Acton, Massachusetts
Firm name: Arrowstreet Inc.
Architect of Record: Laurence S. Spang, AIA
Completion: 2022
Jury comments: The multiple ways this project identifies and engages in exemplary environmental tactics is refreshing and educational for all students and visitors alike.
Client: Acton Boxborough Regional School District
Images/Photographer(s): Robert Benson, Edward Wonsek, Arrowstreet
