The design of Alexandria City High School at Minnie Howard aimed to create a new kind of 21st Century learning environment that reduces environmental degradation, engages and fosters career readiness and lifelong learning, promotes community resiliency, and enhances health and wellness for students, families, and members of the community. The redesign of this new campus helped redefine opportunities offered to the students, families, and community of Alexandria. With this design, we synthesized sustainable design, Net Zero Energy goals, public health and materials, and building systems to foster an idea of “Holistic Wellness.” This idea is a commitment to create a healthy, high-performance place to learn that sets students on a lifelong path to healthier, happier, more productive lives.

The project consists of a new 343,410 GSF school building, including a STEAM- and CTE-focused educational program, an aquatics center, and City co-located programs such as Department of Community Health Services, Teen Wellness, and Early Childhood Education. The site features include athletic fields, bio-retention filtering and retention, native plantings, photovoltaic arrays, and interpretive signage that explains many of the sustainable features of the school.

At the center of the building, the design creates a distinct learning ambiance in the form of a vertical “Creative Commons,” the heart of the school. The Creative Commons reimagines space that would have typically been used for a singular, large, institutional cafeteria to instead create a more inviting and collegiate ambiance, an atrium, distributed across every level of the building.

The Net Zero Energy (NZE) goal was a key consideration throughout the design process. Energy and daylight analysis was performed at numerous stages to improve daylight while minimizing energy use. The building is oriented along an east-west axis so all classrooms can face north or south, improving daylight quality. Additionally, window-to-wall ratio, glazing properties, shading, and envelope performance had to be balanced carefully. We started with a low window wall ratio since we have found this to be the most cost-effective way to reduce energy use. Next, we tested the window configurations to ensure classrooms could be daylit as much as possible. We also selected different glass types on the north in order to admit more light, while keeping a lower Solar Heat Gain Coefficient on other façades. Modeling demonstrated that infiltration was more impactful than superinsulation, so infiltration performance requirements were added to the specifications. Testing at completion of construction confirmed a whole-building infiltration rate of 0.15 cfm/sf @75Pa, or less than half the code maximum.

The highly efficient systems further reduce the energy demand by utilizing a ground source heat pump for heating, cooling, domestic hot water, and pool heating. Ventilation is provided with an efficient DOAS system that includes MERV 13 filters and demand control response to balance energy use with indoor air quality. Photovoltaic panels will be installed in the future and, when completed, should enable NZE operation. The final predicted energy consumption of 26.6 kBTU/sf/yr (before renewables) is likely unprecedented for such a large school with a heated competition swimming pool and will reduce operating costs over the whole life of the building.

Category:Green ArchitectureYear:2025Location: Alexandria, Virginia, USAArchitects:Perkins Eastman ArchitectsLead Architect:Kerrie FrymireGeneral Contractor:Gilbane Building CompanyDesign Team: Sean O'Donnell, Omar Calderon, Ken Terzian, Lina TaheriClient:Alexandria City Public SchoolsPhotographers:Judy Davis