School

BIG's recently completed California college building showcases the firm's knack for producing eye-catching architecture. The project is made up of stacked concrete rectangular forms that are topped by a large solar panel array.

The world's largest 3D-printed construction project is currently underway in Qatar. The effort involves printing a pair of schools, each of which smashes current records for a 3D-printed building.

This year's World Building of the Year has been announced during the World Architecture Festival in Singapore. Australia's Darlington Public School, by fjcstudio, got the nod for its sensitive and inclusive approach to early learning.

Electric school buses are hardly front page news these days, but GreenPower has charged its way onto our radar with the Mega Beast – a purpose-built 40-ft-long young people carrier with a monstrous battery bank.

Heatherwick Studio has been hired to create its first school. Responding to a cramped site in Tokyo, it has designed a greenery filled building with an unusual layout that will provide outdoor learning areas and generous playground space.

The BIG-designed Robert Day Sciences Center is an eye-catching new addition to California's Claremont McKenna College. It will take the form of Jenga-like stacked timber rectangles and will be topped by solar panels, reducing its draw on the grid.

According to non-profit Thinking Huts, Madagascar is in dire need of new schools. To try and address this issue, the organization has created the first in a planned series of 3D-printed schools for the country, and possibly beyond.

Diébédo Francis Kéré has won the 2022 Pritzker Prize. The judges highlighted the architect's ingenious approach to sustainability, which embraces passive techniques like natural ventilation to provide comfort in challenging conditions.

Chinese automotive giant BYD has unveiled a battery-electric bus with a 155-mile range and innovative bi-directional charging tech that could help reduce the carbon footprint of the schools it services.

Over the past few years, 3D-printed architecture has matured from a hobbyist novelty to being used to create everything from offices to affordable housing. The latest stride in this area concerns a plan to create the world's first 3D-printed school.

BIG has been commissioned to design a new student center for Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland. Named The Village, it's conceived as an oversized living room and will feature a timber structure and a roof covered in solar panels.

BIG has had a remarkably busy year and is back yet again with a new project called The Heights. The public school, which also involved Leo A Daly as executive architect, has an unusual design that fans out to create outdoor terrace areas.