East Austin high school wins national design award
Why it matters: The design of Eastside Early College High School is meant to reflect the complicated legacy of desegregation while also providing a state-of-the-art learning environment.
Catch up quick: The high school cost roughly $80 million, with money coming from a 2017 Austin ISD bond. It's on the site of the old L.C. Anderson High School.
Anderson served as Austin's only Black high school for more than 80 years until it was closed in 1971 during desegregation.
Driving the news: Earlier this month, the project, by Austin-based architecture firm Perkins and Will, won an education facility design award from the American Institute of Architects for its sustainable, resilient and inclusive design.
How it works: The design team reconstructed brick-by-brick parts of the old building, which had to be torn down, while expanding it into a 4-story, 173,000-square-foot school that overlooks the Austin skyline.
What they're saying: Members of the Perkins and Will team met with Anderson alumni as they put together the design.
The shutting down of the old Anderson school "tore apart friendships, shut down Friday night lights and morning doughnut parties and cut off students from favorite teachers," Angela Whitaker-Williams, the project's managing principal at Perkins and Will, tells Axios.
The challenge was "how do we reflect on the history and propel it into the future," she says.
Zoom in: The team recreated the brick entrance facade, but built classroom space that would be "very flexible, collaborative and high-tech," Whitaker-Williams said.
"The building's base incorporates the original Anderson High School's brick and midcentury modern lines, honoring the deep African American history of the site," reads a project description from the design firm.
"Rising from this foundation, the new campus symbolizes the perseverance of a community whose school was closed by federal court order."
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