King Elementary School

Overview

A new vision for an elementary school played a large role in the design of this building. Differing from the closed off, interior focused schools found in the district, including King’s previous building, this new school has an open, welcoming tone and strives to play an active role in the community. Spaces filled with natural light and color help to create a teaching and learning environment filled with enthusiasm. During the design process, careful consideration was given to the elementary student scale: classrooms and recreational spaces were grouped by grade level to ensure social learning could take place.

At the same time, the school district committed to pursuing LEED Certification for the new school; MAHG worked closely with VBSD to achieve LEED Gold status for the school. The 84,000 s.f. building utilizes geothermal heating and cooling, daylight harvesting, and a rain water collection system for flushing toilets and landscape irrigation. The project was named 2013 LEED Project of the Year by the Arkansas Chapter of the USGBC.