A high-school and college dual-enrollment program, all under one roof.
Bard College’s Early College Program collaborates with public school districts to offer students in disadvantaged neighborhoods a free path to higher education. When enrolled in this program, students are given the opportunity to take enough credits to earn an associate’s degree along with their high school diploma. This enables students to cut the cost of higher education in half by starting college in their junior year. In 2019, this program opened its eighth location in the District of Columbia.
Partnering with DC Public Schools (DCPS), the program initially opened in a temporary location east of the Anacostia River, looking to establish a permanent location that had a support system dedicated to each student’s success and that was worthy of Bard’s academically challenging program. “We started in a temporary facility, so the space didn’t foster the sense of importance that the institution provided,” student Josiah Best told the local Washington Informer news site. Perkins Eastman DC was commissioned to design Bard’s new location on a site that had once been home to Malcolm X Elementary School—and before that, a community center of the same name—in a structure from the 1960s.
During the research phase, the design team spoke with the schools’ faculty and administrators and interviewed students from Bard’s other campuses in Baltimore and New York to learn about their wants and needs in relation to the project. That information was used as design inspiration for a diverse “learning landscape” of indoor and outdoor spaces that provide a wide range of educational activities that would fulfill Bard’s mission and vision—“the twin goals of equity and excellence in public education” that depends, in part, on “the creation of a supportive culture within a [single] school structure, thereby avoiding the challenges of dual-enrollment programs,” Bard President Leon Botstein wrote in a forward to the program’s 20th anniversary report, issued in 2022.
The updated DC structure and new addition support Bard’s mission with academies within the school that not only emphasize advanced teaching and learning, but also invite community use, and establish new standards for sustainable urban school design within existing facilities.
The Socratic Walk climbs up from the entrance lobby through a central atrium and connects each floor and academy. It concludes at the top floor, where skylights send natural light down through the atrium to illuminate the school’s interior spaces.
The new addition features community spaces including the gym, a stage, and choral and instrumental music spaces. An after-hours passageway between the school and this addition also allows visitors access to the fitness room, a general-purpose classroom, and the school store. The outdoor track and playground are also open to the public, as is a path allowing area residents to get to the nearby Congress Heights Metro stop a block away. These amenities are essential elements of the school’s program because they allow students strong community access and support.
Bard High School Early College DC is not only an educational institution, but also a structure that represents sustainable urban design. The exterior on the older structure was replaced to blend with the school’s urban and residential surroundings while also providing energy-saving shading and insulation. This allowed the project to save a significant amount of money and resources while also enhancing its thermal performance, where before there was no insulation behind the old brick facade, which had also become structurally compromised.
The new thermal envelope provides a continuous weather barrier, while also providing more windows that allow ample daylight into the building’s classrooms, a feature known to help teachers and students thrive.
The team also prioritized materials that reduce environmental impact. They took a holistic decarbonization approach by addressing embodied carbon (saving as much of the existing structure as possible) and operational carbon (with energy systems that minimize reliance on fossil-fuel-generated energy).
LEED and WELL standards were used as a design framework to prioritize air quality, daylighting, and acoustic performance. Using these design strategies and efficient HVAC systems, the school is designed to minimize its impact on our planet by targeting LEED Platinum and Net Zero Energy certifications.
At every stage of the process, the team gathered feedback from a School Improvement Team (SIT) comprised of school leadership, staff, teachers, community members, parents, and students. Our team hosted these members of the school and gathered feedback directly from them. The community was also involved in the design, choosing artists to create art representing the school, its history, and its academic and cultural values.
“Bard’s motto is ‘A place to think.’ It is a place where students’ ideas are taken seriously and where they are expected to be serious about their ideas. The experience is rigorous and difficult, our expectations are high, but so is the level of support that we are prepared to provide.” —Vanessa T. Anderson, PhD, Principal of Bard High School Early College DC.
