Alice West Fleet Elementary School offers innovative approaches to compact site design, energy efficiency, sustainability, and learning. The highly efficient facility features numerous design innovations that reduce the school’s carbon footprint and maximize energy savings.

Sited adjacent to a middle school, park, and recreation center, Fleet Elementary transforms a former parking lot into an educational landscape that improves accessibility, connectivity, and environmental conditions for the benefit of the entire 20-acre site. The design team built community trust by ensuring a cohesive park was retained, resulting in no significant loss of green space or recreational programming.

Despite its compact footprint, the ground floor still accommodates a full-sized gymnasium, stage, dining commons, kitchen, administration, and all PreK and Kindergarten classrooms with direct access outside. Grades 1 and 2 are located on the second floor, grades 3 and 4 on the third floor, and the 5th grade is on a smaller fourth floor. The building “steps back” as it “goes up”, placing the 4th story closest to the center of the site and as far away from houses as possible. Under the building, a podium of structured parking for 228 vehicles preserves green space for the community.

Ambitious planning goals for this elementary school included a comprehensive approach to universal design, the creation of a zero-energy building, LEED certification at the Gold level. The project provided an opportunity to improve our preferred materials list and update our specification template to strengthen and clarify the sustainable components and ingredients.