The new Wilson Secondary School expands and relocates two existing county-wide secondary programs in a new building.
Located in a dense urban context along Arlington’s urban Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor, the school is designed across multiple levels in order to maintain open green space for recreation.
BIG’s design seeks to maintain the feeling of a 1-story school building while still having a vertical organization and the efficiencies afforded by it.
The building is designed as a series of classroom bars rotated along a single hinge point.
The rotation creates cascading green terraces leading from the educational spaces of the school to the athletic field.
Beneath the rotated classroom bars is a pair of large public levels with varying ceiling heights.
The large and public functions of the building, including auditorium and gymnasium, are placed on these levels and accessible from the main street front, Wilson Boulevard. Source by Bjarke Ingels Group.
- Location: Arlington, Virginia, USA
- Architects: Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)
- Partners in Charge: Bjarke Ingels, Daniel Sundlin, Thomas Christoffersen
- Project Manager: Sean Franklin
- Project Designer: Ji-young Yoon
- Project Architect: Adam Sheraden
- Project Team: Amina Blacksher, Anton Bashkaev, Aran Coakley, Beat Schenk, Bennett Gale, Benson Chien, Cadence Bayley, Cristian Lera, Daisy Zhong, Deborah Campbell, Domenic Schmid, Douglass Alligood, Eva Maria Mikkelsen, Evan Rawn, Ibrahim Salman, Jan Leenknegt, Janice Rim, Jin Xin, Ku Hun Chung, Mateusz Rek, Maureen Rahman, Pablo Costa, Ricardo Palma, Romea Muryn, Tammy Teng, Terrence Chew, Terry Lallak, Tony Saba-Shiber, Valentina Mele, Ziad Shehab
- Collaborators: Leo A Daly, Silman, Interface Engineering, Gordon, Theater Projects, Jaffee Holden, Faithful & Gould, GHD, Hopkins Food Service, GeoConcepts, Haley Aldrich, Sextant, Tilitson Design Associates, EHT Traceries, Lerch Bates
- Client: Arlington Public Schools
- Area:15800 m2
- Year: 2016
- Images: MIR, doug and wolf2 , Courtesy of BIG Bjarke Ingels Group
