New Buildings

Headwaters Expansion

A lower elementary classroom building for the Headwaters School

Type: Educational / Classroom Building
Location: Austin, Texas
Size: [Size — drop in]
Year: 2016
Status: Built

The Headwaters Expansion is a two-classroom building added to the campus of Austin's Headwaters School (formerly Khabele). The two paired classrooms wrap a covered exterior courtyard that becomes the room they share — the building's most consequential decision is that the outdoor space sits inside the program, not next to it. Limestone, cedar, green steel, and clerestory daylight do the architectural work; the Montessori pedagogy fills it. The completed expansion received the 2016 AIA Austin Design Award and the Texas Architecture Design Award.

Front entry approach to the Headwaters Expansion, with limestone walls, a cedar-clad clerestory band above, a green steel storefront door, and a wood-plank walkway leading in past a low planter — The entry approach — limestone, cedar, and green steel arranged at the scale of a child. Photo: Peter Molick

Aerial perspective view of the Headwaters Expansion building tucked into a mature oak grove, with the long shed roof and central courtyard skylight visible — The building was sited in an existing oak grove — the roof is shaped to thread the canopy, not clear it. Photo: Peter Molick

Tall portrait detail of an exterior corner of the building, with rough-cut limestone wall meeting a green steel column at the wood-plank deck, with a green roof beam visible above — Exterior corner — rough limestone meets fine steel, with the porch deck running up to the wall. Photo: Peter Molick

Two children blurred in motion, running across the wood deck in front of a glass classroom wall, with the porch ceiling and clerestory above — The porch is the threshold — the kids were running across it before the building had finished its first day. Photo: Peter Molick

Courtyard at twilight, with a single figure walking through, classrooms glowing with warm interior light on three sides, and the deep blue evening sky overhead — The courtyard at twilight — the room the two classrooms share. Photo: Peter Molick

Symmetric view across the courtyard at dusk, looking through full-height glass into a brightly-lit classroom with bookshelves and rugs, the green roof structure visible at the top of the frame — Symmetric view across the courtyard — the classrooms read as twins around a shared spine. Photo: Peter Molick

Tall view of the courtyard threshold showing limestone walls, cedar clerestory band above, a green door at center, and floor-to-ceiling glass on either side opening into both classrooms — Threshold detail — the green door is the only opaque interruption in a wall of glass. Photo: Peter Molick

Wider view of the courtyard plaza with a raised concrete planter holding a young tree, glass classrooms on either side, and the wood deck running between — Plaza-side planter — landscape and architecture share the same module. Photo: Peter Molick

Tight detail of the limestone wall meeting the steel-supported translucent canopy overhead, with afternoon light raking across the rough stone — Canopy detail — the wall was specified for shadow as much as for shelter. Photo: Peter Molick

Wide interior view of a Montessori classroom with high vaulted ceiling, a continuous clerestory window band above eye level, low Montessori shelving, work tables, and full-height glass to the courtyard at left — Classroom clerestory — daylight enters above the work surfaces, never glaring on them. Photo: Peter Molick

Classroom interior with three children gathered around a low wooden table on a teal rug, Montessori shelving and books visible in the background, and a sliding glass door at left opening to the courtyard — Two children and a teacher — the building exists for what happens at this table. Photo: Peter Molick

Classroom interior with vaulted ceiling, ceiling fans, full-height windows on the right opening to the porch, and Montessori work tables and shelves arranged across the wood floor — The cathedral-volume classroom — every Montessori room asks for height it usually doesn't get. Photo: Peter Molick

Tall portrait of an interior corridor with green steel columns, a sliding glass partition at left opening to the porch, and a brightly-lit classroom visible in the distance with rugs and tables — Interior corridor — green steel columns repeat the porch's outdoor module inside. Photo: Peter Molick

Tall portrait threshold view from inside one classroom looking through full-height glass to the courtyard beyond, with the wooden deck visible and the opposing classroom faintly visible across the way — Looking from one classroom to the other — the courtyard is the third room they share. Photo: Peter Molick

Tall portrait detail of a window above a row of glass jars holding colored pencils sorted by color — red, yellow, blue, green, and grey — with a fern plant and bookshelf at left and a tree visible through the window — Pencil window — the smallest moment in the building, and the one most worth remembering. Photo: Peter Molick

Top-down aerial view showing the building's roof plan, the central courtyard skylight aligned with the wood-deck approach, surrounded by mature oak trees on three sides — Roof-plan aerial — the building's geometry is a direct trace of how the courtyard organizes the program around it. Photo: Peter Molick

Process: Design 3 drawings

Design-phase artifacts — sketches, massing studies, schematic boards, and the drawings that informed the building's organization.

Schematic design rendering of the Headwaters School entry with families and a cyclist on the wood-plank approach, the limestone-and-cedar building in the middle distance, and a low signage element at the entry — Entry rendering — the approach was sized for kids on bikes and parents at strolling speed.

Rendering of the central courtyard with children playing around a planter and a young tree, limestone walls and translucent canopy overhead, and classrooms visible through the courtyard glass — Courtyard rendering — the design phase imagined the space as a room first, a circulation path second.

Interior rendering of a classroom with children on a colorful rug in the foreground, a teacher in the middle distance, Montessori work tables, and the cathedral-vaulted ceiling with cedar clerestory band above — Interior rendering — the cathedral volume was the program request, not the design ambition.

Client and program

The Headwaters School (then Khabele) needed a lower-elementary classroom expansion that could carry the school’s growing Montessori enrollment without losing the intimacy that had defined the campus. The brief was two classrooms, paired, with shared support space — and a strong request from the Montessori faculty for high vaulted ceilings, generous daylight, and the kind of indoor-outdoor connection their pedagogy depends on.

Site and constraint

The site is a wooded slope at the edge of the existing campus, dotted with mature oaks the school was unwilling to cut. The footprint that was buildable without losing trees was narrow and elongated. The constraints set the geometry: a long, low building with a roof shaped to thread the canopy rather than clear it.

Design move

The two classrooms wrap a covered exterior courtyard that becomes the room they share. The courtyard is the project’s most consequential decision — not a circulation path between rooms, but a third space that the program is organized around. Limestone walls, green steel structure, cedar clerestory bands, and translucent canopy panels carry the architectural work. Inside, the vaulted ceilings give every classroom the volume that Montessori work demands, and the clerestory daylight enters above the work surfaces, never glaring on them.

Construction approach

Standard wood and steel construction, with the limestone walls treated as both structural and cosmetic — the rough-face Texas limestone reads as continuous with the surrounding hill country geology. The translucent canopy over the courtyard is detailed as a separate lighter assembly so it reads as canopy rather than as building extension.

Outcome

The Headwaters Expansion received the 2016 AIA Austin Design Award and the Texas Architecture Design Award the same year. More importantly, it is the building from which the studio’s confidence in clerestory daylight, courtyard organization, and modest civic-scale architecture has carried forward — the courtyard logic in particular has become a pattern the practice continues to apply across experiential and educational typologies.

Credits

Client: Headwaters School (formerly Khabele)
Photography: Peter Molick
Structural Engineer: [Structural Engineer of Record — drop in]
Contractor: [General Contractor — drop in]
Landscape: [Landscape Architect — drop in]
Consultants: [MEP — drop in] · [Civil — drop in]

Recognition

Award · 2016

Design Award

Award · 2016

Texas Architecture Design Award

AIA Austin · 2016

2016 Design Award — Headwaters School Expansion

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