Open Interior halls, flexible classrooms and other design components of the new South Junior High School, 2734 La., are winning positive reviews - both from the school's principal and a jury of architects reviewing the school's design plans on behalf of the Kansas chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The design, by the Lawrence office of Gould Evans, received a Citation Award in the chapter's Annual Design Awards.

The new South Junior High School opened later than expected, cost $1 million less than anticipated and now is being hailed by demanding professionals as a design to be appreciated.

The Lawrence office of Gould Evans is the winner of a Citation Award for Unbuilt Architecture from the Kansas chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

The award ranks the project among the best architectural designs in the state for the past year.

Steve Clark, a Gould Evans principal leading the project, said the design was a case of form following function.

“There’s a lot of economy in designing a building where it’s simply asked to work really well,” said Clark, who, along with fellow principal John Wilkins, led a team of 10 architects and designers on the project. “In the end, hopefully, it still looks good, because you have an aesthetic eye for how to put it together, but it’s not the thing that drives the school – which is making it a great environment, and making it an enabling environment for the teachers.”

The award, announced earlier this month in Topeka, came in the Unbuilt Architecture category despite the school being in use by teachers, staffers and students. That’s because construction crews still aren’t done finishing all their work on the project, and nominations for design awards were due in the middle of last month.

Even without seeing the finished – that is, built – product, contest judges were impressed with Gould Evans’ approach to opening up hallways, to give teachers flexibility to expand or restrict the size of their classrooms and otherwise accommodate a structured school day without stifling creativity.

“This project offers some promising internalized common spaces between classroom buildings,” wrote the judges, led by Audrey O’Hagan, of Audrey O’Hagan Architects in Newton, Mass. “These spaces imply a flexible, collaborative spirit for the junior high school that would allow for student appropriation and interpretation.

“The campus strikes a nice balance between formal and informal spaces.”

As construction crews continue going through the school to complete final “punch list” items, Will Fernandez, South’s principal, has a list of reasons why he likes the new $23 million building, which replaced a windowless school built 40 years ago for $1.4 million.

“The newness and innovative design,” Fernandez said. “All the natural light just beaming through the celestory glass at the top of our roofs of the building – and the openness of the hallways, that the student flow is maximized.

“Now we don’t have the real close, crowded hallways that we had with the old South.”