EDfacility Tours

Architect: Huckabee

Martinez Early Learning Center is the inaugural pre-kindergarten campus for Alief ISD. The design takes the form of a village with winding pathways and neighborhoods that house immersive learning experiences to help build literacy and numeracy skills. Curated classroom experiences reflect themes that engage young learners, from space, oceans and farmland to dinosaurs, construction, and cultures around the world.

Architect: Stantec

Located on a 23-acre site, sits the 2-story, approximately 164,490 square foot James Reese CTC. As a prominent feature at this location, the center exhibits the aspirations of the district to provide the highest quality career and technical education while acting as a community center for the educational and social needs of the communities within Fort Bend ISD. The centralized CTE facility serves High School students through various programs and is designed to respond to programmatic changes based on industry needs and student interests. The five enterprise locations were designed to provide retail services to the community and generate revenue and are located along the building façades which promote public access along the street frontages of University Boulevard and Chatham Avenue.

Architect: DLR Group

Fort Bend Independent School District’s first new high school in over a decade, Almeta Crawford High School, officially opened its doors for the 2023 school year. DLR Group’s design for the facility implements design principles identified by the district as essential for a safe, inclusive, adaptive, and collaborative learning environment. Active participation in the classrooms, collaboration spaces, and multipurpose areas are facilitated by using operable partitions, mobile markerboards, and flexible furniture that provide reconfigurability of spaces. Totaling over 500,000 SF, Almeta Crawford High School serves 2,800 students. It is also the focal point of a budding community southwest of Houston with numerous developments surrounding the new high school.

Architect: cre8 Architects

Carpenter Elementary School serves 980 K-5 students, with a curriculum emphasizing science, technology, and robotics. Its design, inspired by a starship theme, matches its educational focus, featuring way-finding graphics for easy student navigation and a two-story layout to maximize natural light and outdoor space. The school is organized into color-coded pods, each outfitted with areas for collaboration and flexible learning. The design also includes versatile classrooms, adaptable furniture, and two distinct learning courtyards: one dedicated to Texas history and the other designed to resemble the solar system, creating an immersive and interactive educational environment. Furthermore, the school highlights its focus on robotics and technology through educational branding and graphics throughout the facility. For safety, it is equipped with impact-resistant glass in the entrance lobby and lockable pods for each grade level, ensuring a secure environment for all students.

Architect: PBK

Originally built in 1930, Goose Creek CISD’s San Jacinto Elementary School is a fixture in the community with a historic longevity of more than ninety years. It has been rebuilt four times, the most recent of which was completed in 2021. When the district began design on the newest facility the vision was to keep its location as close as possible to the original site and to retain and pay homage to the historical significance of the original building. Aptly named for the Battle of San Jacinto the school’s front entry was designed to replicate the facade of the Alamo in San Antonio, an icon in the community of Goose Creek CISD that was historically used for its elementary schools. Unique to this prototype was the addition of an Early Learning Academy that is housed in a separate wing of the building. The Academy houses 13 experiential learning classrooms, a large multiuse shared space serving as cafeteria, play area, and group learning, as well as various support offices. The remainder of the campus houses 24 classrooms for grades K-5, break out spaces for large group learning, a Central Library, Gym, Cafetorium, Music, Science & Art classrooms.

Architect: Pfluger

The district had an active career training program that required busing students from across the area. However, they hoped to consolidate and improve student career readiness by building a stand-alone high school to serve 900 full-time students. The district worked with local businesses and colleges to strengthen educational outcomes by creating a 10-year plan to fully develop six career pathways that would set the standard for other regional CTE programs. Today, Stuart Career Tech is a gateway to real-world experience where students receive hands-on training that prepares them for the job market. Pfluger’s redesign consolidated three underused facilities in a phased development plan so the school could remain open during construction. We strategically positioned classrooms for interdisciplinary collaboration and gave public-facing programs access through separate secure entrances. This revitalized campus is where students learn to use their minds and hands, and teachers have the facilities to make a real difference.

Architect: VLK Architects

Energy Institute High School is the newest magnet school in the Houston Independent School District and the first “energy” school in the Nation. Project based learning (PBL) is utilized in the pathways of the geo sciences, alternative energy, and offshore technology for this 800-student campus. Working with the community-based Project Advisory Team (PAT) which includes energy sector businesses, VLK Architects and Houston ISD organized a design charrette to establish the goals, priorities, and initial design concept for the project. The resulting concept features a campus like setting, mimicking many of the corporate campuses where energy students visit and intern during their high school education. PBL is supported through a variety of spaces including small classrooms, project rooms, and various collaboration spaces. An outdoor courtyard is the center of the campus with a shaded tiered collaboration area and outdoor instructional spaces. The design supports a technology rich Campus that is part of the PowerUp 1:1 initiative and all instructional spaces are equipped with smart interactive monitors.

Architect: Lake Flato

Awty International School offers the largest International and French Baccalaureate K-12 program in the country. The school’s new Student Center dramatically reshapes the existing campus which serves 1500 students in grades 2-12. A new large, central courtyard embraces the structures, which join myriad learning environments, including — dining spaces, library/media areas, STEM labs and a maker studio. New academic classrooms, flexible collaboration areas and faculty support spaces complete the dynamic composition.  These varied functions also catalyze outdoor learning, community gathering and adjacent athletic spaces amidst verdant rain gardens, rainwater cisterns, hydroponic containers, and shady porches. The Net-Zero Energy ready campus will also model sustainable practices in stormwater management, food cycling, and onsite energy generation.

Architect: Stantec

Memorial High School, with a rich history in exceptional academics and athletics, is completely land-locked with aging facilities and was in great need to be re-developed. Spring Branch ISD partnered with Stantec to design a campus that provided a state-of-the-art learning environment while still highlighting the school’s rich heritage. To solve this, we crafted a solution that enhanced athletics, freeing up space to build and replace six older buildings, all while the campus was fully occupied.  The new four-story building supports general academics, science, dining/commons, flexible learning, and AP offices. The project also included traffic improvements, renovations of remaining buildings, and highly used outdoor learning courtyards that enhance the collegiate feel of the campus. Now complete, the new school elevates teaching, learning, and engagement to new heights, creating spaces of which the students and the community can be proud.

Architect: SLAM and Page

The three-story, 130,000 square foot new College of Medicine building for a start-up medical school at the University of Houston. The facility, built by Vaughn Construction, boasts state of the art learning environments including classrooms, immersive learning spaces, faculty, and staff offices, as well as student study and social lounges. Notable features of the building and the design process include sustainability and reclaimed wood as featured in the live edge board room table, a first of its kind “Sky Box Team-Based Learning Lecture Hall”, continuum of care simulation, and a custom art piece to add to the ‘user experience’ in the welcoming two-story lobby. 

Architect: Kirksey

The Anderson-Ball Classroom Building is the latest addition to San Jacinto College’s Central Campus. As the one of the nation’s largest mass timber buildings, it exhibits the mass timber structure throughout all public spaces and on its exterior facade. The building educates not only in the classroom but through informative plaques highlighting the building’s sustainable features. The building, comprised of two wings connected by a double-height lobby, features instructional spaces, a robotics lab, lecture hall, and student gathering spaces. Sustainable design strategies — the reuse of existing building foundations, electrochromic glazing, greywater reuse, tubular daylighting, photovoltaic roof panels, and mass timber—make up the heart of this high-performing building. The mass timber structure produces 75% less embodied carbon emissions compared to a similar steel structure.

Architect: Kirksey

The University of Houston, Sciences & Technology Building inspires science by providing moments of discovery in different scales. With high visibility located along Interstate 10 and across from one of Houston’s most familiar bayous, the urban downtown campus becomes a “city window” and integrates itself into the surrounding natural landscape. Housing different sciences, the building features opportunities for cross-pollination in both chemistry and biology studies, as well as moments of discovery throughout corridors and the atrium. Walking trails and a porch area with views of the bayou provide a connection to nature. The UHD Sciences & Technology Building not only fosters teaching in laboratories, but serves as a destination of discovery unto itself and promotes more STEM initiatives for Houston.