News - Norfolk Academy

Norfolk Academy Wins Award for Excellence in Design and Sustainability

Dec 3 2020

Norfolk Academy recently won an award for architectural design featuring a “sustainability approach" for buildings created as part of the Defining Leadership: Campaign for 2028.

The recognition came from HRACRE, a professional member-services organization serving the commercial real estate community of Hampton Roads, and is part of the VACRE, the Virginia Association for Commercial Real Estate. The HRACRE Design Awards program is an annual recognition of design excellence, “identifying and encouraging excellence in development in the Hampton Roads real estate community."

The school received the Design Excellence Award for Best Well Building from a panel of four architects. In its comments about the school's achievement, the jury noted: “While reinforcing their traditionally high standards of better equipping students and faculty at Norfolk Academy, this project does so though with a sustainability approach rarely seen in educational projects."

The jury of architects also observed, “The buildings and the spaces between them draw attention to their impact on the environment and facilitate the notion that learning is everywhere, and ongoing. Sustainability features… are used to teach and inform and provide opportunities to practice environmental responsibility - now that’s how you educate the future.”

Buildings created during the campaign, which raised more than $68 million for endowment, capital projects, and operating support, have continued to receive recognition for design and environmental innovation. This spring, the James B. Massey Jr. Leadership Center won two awards at the annual meeting of the state chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council: a leadership award for Innovative Design, New Construction, K-12 Schools and it shared in a three-way tie for the People's Choice Award with New Cabell Hall at University of Virginia and the Consolidated Science Research Facility at Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS).

Other major additions to campus architecture as part of the Defining Leadership Campaign include the Wynne-Darden Stadium and the expansion of the Lower School. The architects for the projects were Rob Reis and Jane Rathbone of Norfolk-based Hanbury. Whiting Turner was the construction firm.

The HRACRE awards jury was comprised of the following: Donna Dunay, FAIA, Distinguished Professor, Virginia Tech School of Architecture + Design, IAWA Chair; Mike Johnson II AIA, IIDA, LEED ID+C, Senior Associate Perkins+Will; David Bagnoli, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, McGraw Bagnoli Architects; and Andrew McBride FAUA, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, University Architect and Assoc VP Facilities, University of Richmond.

Please read more about the environmental awards Academy's campus earned this year.