New York’s First ‘Passive House’ School Is a Model of Downtown Density

Pavel Bendov/James Ewing/Sarah Schumacher for Bloomberg

Building a school in a city is always a bit of a puzzle. Without the sprawling exurban lots that so many school districts favor, there’s a balancing act between recreation space and classroom needs, efficient movement of kids and places for them to stretch out, welcoming entrances and secure facilities. But those were only the first set of challenges Architecture Research Office (ARO) faced in designing a 146,000-square-foot public primary school and high school on one of Brooklyn’s busiest thoroughfares: The twin facilities were also part of a full-block development atop a 100-year-old subway tunnel, and they needed to achieve the rigorous Passive House efficiency standards.

“Honestly, one of the things we are good at is that puzzle of, ‘How do you come up with a rational and good architecture, no matter what the constraints are?’” says ARO principal Stephen Cassell. “We will rarely say no.”

The new Elizabeth Jennings School for Bold Explorers (aka PS456) and Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), an existing Arabic language high school, opened in September in a pair of interlocking structures, designed for permanence and calm despite numerous overlapping agendas. The approximately $150 million construction cost came from New York’s Education Construction Fund, which supports private development projects when combined with public schools.