WMAIA 2024 Design Awards
HONOR AWARD
Dodson & Flinker, Florence, MA
The Raymond E. Shaw Elementary School serves 550 students in central Massachusetts. The new, certified LEED Gold school building and landscape replaces an aging, mid-20th century school building.
The building and landscape design are inspired by the threads of natural and cultural history, visible and invisible, that give meaning to the site: from agricultural patterns still visible in stone walls, to native plant wetland and forest communities, to mill power and products.
The school landscape is designed to provide outdoor learning and play beyond recess, with outdoor classroom spaces and interpretive features that include a meadow walk, a constructed wetland, sloped playground with embankment slides and interconnected nets, a forest classroom and trail, and a stormwater runnel wall and waterwheel driven by roof runoff.
Photos by Ed Wonsek Artworks
