Located in the heart of Lawrence, MA—a city shaped by industry and immigration—the Henry K. Oliver School project transforms a century-old building into an all-electric, net-zero-ready facility for 1,000 students in grades K-8. The design honors a rich civic legacy while delivering modern, inspirational learning environments for a student body with 90% low-income enrollment.

A complex addition-renovation effort, the project adds a new middle school component to the existing elementary school on a tight urban site. The design team overcame a host of architectural and engineering challenges, from painstaking preservation of the original façade to the embedding of state-of-the-art MEP systems within a historic structure.