Mount Si High School

Located in the flood-prone Snoqualmie River valley, Mount Si High School is a beacon of resilience. The physically elevated campus creates a wealth of opportunities – educationally and experientially – in a future-oriented learning environment. Seven connected school buildings are composed on a created ground plane lifted above the native grade on piers so that flood waters flow unobstructed, neither damaging the buildings nor interrupting academic functions. Rather than employ a large scale, centralized regional high school typology, the learning environments are organized as small student-centric learning communities with multiple academic and social nodes. The added flexibility of the programmatic response makes the school relevant for decades, achieving programmatic resilience. Biophilic design principles intertwine architecture and landscape to achieve welcoming, natural, human-scale spaces throughout the entire elevated campus.