Maple Elementary

Championed by Washington State Department of Enterprise Services, the project tested this innovative new building product in an educational setting, filling the need for additional classrooms in five total districts across the state. This project team delivered expansions at Maple Elementary in the Seattle School District, and additional classrooms at other schools located in the Sequim School District and Mt. Vernon School Districts.

Mahlum worked closely with the design-build contractor to create a single modular design that can be efficiently built on each site with few modifications. All load-bearing walls in the buildings will be constructed from CLT, and are one of the first examples of CLT for lateral structural systems in the Pacific Northwest. The material will be left exposed to view on the interior. As a result, students will be surrounded by natural wood, which has been shown to stimulate positive psychological and physiological responses that improve mental and physical health.

The roof of each building spans the width of the structure and does not rest on any interior walls, allowing interior walls to be modified. By removing interior walls, classrooms can be opened up to each other to support co-teaching, as well as a variety of teaching and learning styles that transcend the traditional closed classroom model. Together, these design strategies create flexible interiors that support individual and small group learning and can change over time as teaching methods evolve.

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