Designed as nine sep­a­rate build­ings on four acres of land, the Case Mid­dle School is com­prised of class­rooms for the sixth, sev­enth, and eighth grades. Each grade lev­el teach­ing team with four class­rooms occu­pies a sin­gle floor; this unique link­age of cur­ricu­lum and phys­i­cal space fos­ters an inte­gra­tion of stud­ies and a sense of belong­ing among stu­dents and staff.

The archi­tec­tur­al design of the School as a sequence of small­er, mul­ti­ple build­ings with a vil­lage-like char­ac­ter with­in the steeply-sloped site sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces the impact of the inser­tion of the Mid­dle School com­plex into the exist­ing cam­pus. This care­ful­ly cal­i­brat­ed frag­men­ta­tion of built form respects the dom­i­nance of Cas­tle Hall, a sym­bol of Puna­hou School’s long his­to­ry, and cre­ates a fresh, youth­ful envi­ron­ment in which nat­ur­al day­light pen­e­trates all spaces and cor­ri­dor win­dows allow views through the entire build­ing. The archi­tec­tur­al posi­tion­ing of the open-air team meet­ing or “break-out” spaces and the ter­races between build­ings cre­ates sud­den, dra­mat­ic views of the city and sea as an indeli­ble con­nec­tion between the school and community.

Among oth­er facil­i­ties the com­plex includes “cre­ative learn­ing cen­ters” which enhance learn­ing in a hands-on envi­ron­ment for the sev­enth and eighth grades. A mul­ti-use assem­bly and per­for­mance space, the Twigg-Smith Gath­er­ing Place, accom­mo­dates 400 peo­ple, func­tion­ing both as an assem­bly hall for the Mid­dle School but also as a venue for the rest of the School and the com­mu­ni­ty at large. Cov­ered park­ing also inte­grates accom­mo­da­tion for 200 cars into the com­plex.     

The build­ings are designed to be envi­ron­men­tal­ly, social­ly, and cul­tur­al­ly sus­tain­able. As a result the Mid­dle School is the first major cer­ti­fied “green” project in Hawai‘i, attain­ing the LEED Gold Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Among the many com­plex ben­e­fits achieved by this design approach are the preser­va­tion of exist­ing land­scap­ing, the fos­ter­ing of an envi­ron­men­tal con­scious­ness among stu­dents, and the use of:

• recy­cled mate­ri­als for  con­struc­tion such as con­crete, steel, floor­ing, fur­ni­ture, toi­let par­ti­tions, coun­ter­tops, lock­ers and wood from cer­ti­fied sus­tain­able sources;

• ful­ly oper­a­ble win­dows for nat­ur­al ven­ti­la­tion, “low‑E” glass, and pho­to­volta­ic pan­els pro­duc­ing elec­tri­cal power;

• abun­dant nat­ur­al light;

• a dig­i­tal light dim­ming sys­tem inte­grat­ing pho­to and occu­pan­cy sen­sors reduc­ing ener­gy consumption;

• ther­mal ener­gy stor­age ice plant tech­nol­o­gy cre­at­ing ice at night for use in cool­ing the build­ing dur­ing the day; and

• high-effi­cien­cy mechan­i­cal equip­ment includ­ing water­less uri­nals and sen­sor-oper­at­ed elec­tron­ic faucets and water closets.