A Milton-Freewater

elementary school recently earned an outstanding project award from Learning by

Design magazine.

Architects West, with

offices in Coeur d’Alene and Spokane, designed the first all-new school

facility constructed in the Oregon city since 1923. Architects West worked with

design consultant Opsis Architecture of Portland on the project.

The $20 million Gib

Olinger Elementary School is about 50 miles east of the Tri-Cities, south of

Walla Walla. It opened in fall 2018 at 1011 S. Mill St.

The 75,000-square-foot

K-3 school was funded through a combination of a multi-million-dollar private

grant, local bonds and matching funds from the state of Oregon’s first ever

matching funds program.

The school’s design,

which included input from educators and community groups, includes devoting

larger amounts of square footage to classroom pod collaboration areas that

allow a flexible, collaborative teaching model and incorporating organization

tools in fixed finishes such as a carpet pattern pathway, according to a news

release from Architects West.

The school’s capacity is

650 students.

In addition to the

school-day functions, the funding was leveraged to benefit a broad section of

the community by designing a multiuse building, including physical education

and common spaces that serve as multifunctional rooms and enable secure

after-hours access, according to the release.

Sustainability features,

such as 20-kilowatt photovoltaic display, were incorporated, as well as

salvaging glue-laminated beams from the historic Seneca cannery that was

demolished to make way for the school on the 10-acre site.

For 29 years, Learning

by Design’s Educational Architectural Awards program has peer-reviewed, scored

and critiqued thousands of new prekindergarten through 12th grade schools and

higher education facilities nationwide.

Judges look for projects

showcasing novel design thinking, strong facility planning attributes and

success for exceeding the community’s or stakeholders’ operational, functional

and programmatic goals, according to the magazine.

Employee-owned and

-operated Architects West has been providing architectural and landscape

architectural/land planning services throughout the Northwest since 1973.