East Austin high school wins national design award

Catch up quick: The high school cost roughly $80 million, with money coming from a 2017 Austin ISD bond. It's on the site of the old L.C. Anderson High School.

• Anderson served as Austin's only Black high school for more than 80 years until it was closed in 1971 during desegregation.

Driving the news: Earlier this month, the project, by Austin-based architecture firm Perkins and Will, won an education facility design award from the American Institute of Architects for its sustainable, resilient and inclusive design.

How it works: The design team reconstructed brick-by-brick parts of the old building, which had to be torn down, while expanding it into a 4-story, 173,000-square-foot school that overlooks the Austin skyline.

What they're saying: Members of the Perkins and Will team met with Anderson alumni as they put together the design.

• The shutting down of the old Anderson school "tore apart friendships, shut down Friday night lights and morning doughnut parties and cut off students from favorite teachers," Angela Whitaker-Williams, the project's managing principal at Perkins and Will, tells Axios.
• The challenge was "how do we reflect on the history and propel it into the future," she says.

Zoom in: The team recreated the brick entrance facade, but built classroom space that would be "very flexible, collaborative and high-tech," Whitaker-Williams said.

• "The building's base incorporates the original Anderson High School's brick and midcentury modern lines, honoring the deep African American history of the site," reads a project description from the design firm.
• "Rising from this foundation, the new campus symbolizes the perseverance of a community whose school was closed by federal court order."

The bottom line: Eastside — whose student body is 77% Hispanic, 18% Black, 3% white and 1% Asian — now offers classes in health science, engineering, information technology and graphic design, with the opportunity to obtain an associate degree.