Aki Kurose Middle School

The modernization of Aki Kurose Middle School for Seattle Public Schools explores how architecture can emerge from listening, care, and collective authorship. Serving southeast Seattle since 1952, the school’s transformation is guided by the Aki Core 4 Mindsets, the BlackSpace Manifesto, and sustained engagement with students, families, staff, and community. These frameworks shape processes rooted in humility, inclusion, and shared purpose.

Rather than replicating the past, the project interprets and amplifies existing patterns —structural rhythm, sweeping curves, and lantern-like windows. A new pattern language introduces landscape-rich courtyards, daylight-filled Commons, welcoming entries, and academic neighborhoods. Institutional corridors are replaced with interconnected interior and exterior spaces that place landscape, gathering, and movement at the center of students' daily life.

The walk-through video of the digital model demonstrates how architecture can evolve through social, cultural, and environmental forces to honor history and shape a more equitable, joyful, and resilient future for learning.

The modernization and additions at Aki Kurose Middle School for Seattle Public Schools reimagine a historic campus as a welcoming, inclusive environment that supports student success now and into the future. Located in southeast Seattle, the 1952 school serves a richly diverse community and functions as both an educational setting and neighborhood hub. The design is grounded in three centering frameworks—the Aki Kurose Core 4 Mindsets, the BlackSpace Manifesto, and sustained engagement with students, families, staff, and community partners—which guided both process and outcome. These frameworks ensured that issues of equity, belonging, and student well-being remained central throughout planning and design.

Organizationally, the project shifts the school from a collection of long, double-loaded corridor-based wings into academic neighborhoods organized around two courtyards and a reimagined central Commons. A new accessible and secure entry on South Graham Street forms a welcoming “front porch” and civic threshold, connecting administration, family engagement, library, and community spaces. The former landlocked lunchroom becomes the heart of the school. This reimagined Commons functions as the school’s social anchor and connects directly to a central student courtyard, grounding daily life in a direct connection to the outdoors. A skybridge from the Commons over the central courtyard to the new academic addition forms a continuous circulation loop, stitching existing and new construction into a cohesive whole. The new addition is comprised of stacked academic neighborhoods organized around an additional enclosed courtyard that supports collaborative learning and provides access to daylight, views, and outdoor learning environments. The school’s outdoor spaces function as extensions of learning, gathering, and movement, reinforcing the idea that the environment is an active participant in education.

The architectural expression builds on the school’s mid-century framework while introducing new patterns that soften and humanize the learning environment. Folded forms inspired by origami, welcoming curves at key gathering spaces, and lantern-like windows at stairs and study areas bring light, warmth, and identity to the campus. Together, these strategies reflect an understanding of emergence as an ongoing, collective process—where architecture adapts over time to reflect community values, celebrate identity, and foster opportunity for future generations.

Contextual Resilience

Model created by Integrus designer, Mariella Hirschoff, as part of her University of Oregon Terminal Studio project supported by UO professor Will Smith 

Remote islands around the world have developed unique cultures and histories shaped by their separation from the mainland and the necessity to survive. In Ireland specifically, many islands once relied on fishing and farming to sustain them, but now tourism has become their main source of income. These islands hold significant cultural, historical, and economic value, making it critical to support and stabilize the communities that remain in order to ensure long-term environmental and social sustainability. 


In 2023, Ireland’s Department of Rural and Community Development published the Our Living Islands framework, which outlines strategies to support all of Ireland's island communities over the next decade and ensure stability for future generations. This helped to develop the central question of the project; how can essential modern infrastructure be integrated in a way that supports these objectives while still respecting the island's culture and heritage. Focusing on Inis Oírr, the smallest of the three Aran Islands off the coast of Galway, the project explores how ideas from this framework can be applied to a specific place. There are a total of 1,500 miles of dry-stone walls across the three Aran islands.  Today, they continue to shape how space is organized and experienced. Despite a population of just 343 residents, Inis Oírr receives over 100,000 visitors a year. This puts a strain on the island's infrastructure, and with population decline on the island, it's becoming harder for the community to support the tourism that helps sustain them.


This proposal addresses three challenges: scale, space and material. Each responds directly to the island's unique context. The goal of the project is to explore architectural strategies related to site specific constraints, while allowing program to remain flexible to allow for adaptation over time. The building serves as flexible community & visitor center that provides the foundational infrastructure for long term sustainability to help build community resilience