The AIA just announced the projects that received the highest marks in this year’s Educational Facility Design Awards, and they’re a diverse class – the 13 winners run the gamut from urban to rural, elementary to university, built to unbuilt.

Deemed “excellent” by the jury, Antoine Predock Architect’s Indian Community School follows a long ridge on a former farm outside Milwaukee, sidestepping historic trees and sporting a roof of overlapping angled planes that blends into the site’s topography.  Bohlin Cywinski Jackson’s Visitor Center for the Parks Service in Pennsylvania borrows from its setting to make a plea for environmental consciousness instead:  its shingles were cut on-site from old tires found in the streams and woods nearby.

The urban designs may be more constrained by their settings, but they acquit themselves admirably.  In Chicago, OWP|P converted Ralph Ellison elementary school into a high school, renovating the original 1926 limestone building and grafting on a modern glass box with a mosaic of glazed windows.  Another striking visual comes from Daly Genik Architects:  On a long, skinny site sandwiched between two highways in Los Angeles, their industrial-chic Camino Nuevo High School has corrugated metal sides that muffle street sounds while cooling the building at the same time: stylish and smart.

Full list of winners:
“Excellent”:
Indian Community School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Antoine Predock Architect, PC)
Yale University Sculpture Building and Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut (Kieran Timberlake)
Environmental Education/Visitor Activity Center, National Park Service, Pennsylvania (Bohlin Cywinski Jackson)

“Merit”:
Francis Parker School, San Diego, California (Lake|Flato Architects)
ASU Polytechnic Academic Complex, Mesa, Arizona (RSP Architects, Ltd. in association with Lake|Flato Architects)
Camino Nuevo High School, Los Angeles, California (Daly Genik)
Canada’s National Ballet School, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects)

“Citation”:
Cornell University West Campus Residence Initiative, Ithaca, New York (Kieran Timberlake)
Staples Elementary School, Easton, Connecticut (The S|L|A|M Collaborative)
Ralph Ellison Campus, Chicago, Illinois (OWP|P)
Avon Old Farms Beaston Performing Arts Center, Avon, Connecticut (The S|L|A|M Collaborative)
Modular Zero Energy Classroom, Hawaii (Anderson Anderson Architecture)
Green Dot Animo Leadership High School, Lennox, California (Pugh + Scarpa Architects, Inc.)