Evergreen High School
evergreen high school
Seattle, Washington
Client
Highline Public Schools
size
237,000 sf
year
2025
The story of Evergreen High School’s redevelopment is interwoven between people and place. The place is a bucolic landscape that has been sculpted over time by glaciers, erosion, and human development. The site is characterized by a relatively natural yet urban setting that includes undulating landscape surfaces, mature trees, structured playfields, and Lakewood County Park. Reflecting this setting, the school is constructed with an exposed cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glulam structural system, bringing the warmth and texture of the surrounding forest into the heart of the building.
Evergreen High School’s motto is Dig Deep, Rise Up, Branch Out. It expresses the aspirations of the school community – the people. After developing an understanding of the priorities of school and community stakeholders and touring exemplar high school facilities to examine best practices, the design team developed a set of Design Goals for the new Evergreen High School that enhance the nexus of people and place:
Reinforce and strengthen the connection between the school and Lakewood Park
Celebrate existing evergreen trees
Regenerate portions of the site to their previous natural state
Locate student commons at the center of the building with direct connections to major programs
Strong indoor/outdoor connections
Warm and welcoming outdoor gathering areas
Flexible layout that promotes a variety of learning styles and curriculum models
From an understanding of place, the design enhances and expresses the regeneration of the site, the glaciation that shaped the larger region, the historic watercourse (labelled an unclassified stream) that evokes the concept of erosion, and the current generation of large conifer trees. Each of these temporal layers drives the site planning concept, building forms, and the use of natural materials, including the visible mass timber structure.
From an understanding of people, the design creates a safe place nestled into the elegant site; welcoming entries that provide shelter and support security for all; engaging public spaces that encourage community gathering; differentiated spaces that support diverse social and academic activities; quiet spaces that enhance collaboration and individual focus; learning neighborhoods that support rigorous learning and personalized connections between students and adults; flexible layouts that support evolving pedagogies; and visible learning environments where the exposed timber structure inspires exploration and connection to the natural world.
