Seattle World School serves students and families in the earliest, most uncertain stages of a new life in a new country. The school offers more than academics — on-site career services, housing resources, and health care make it a genuine hub of support for newly immigrated young people ranging from early teens to their twenties. When the program found a new home in the former T.T. Minor Elementary, originally designed by renowned Seattle architect Floyd Naramore, the building needed to reflect the community it was about to welcome.
Seattle Public Schools
The renovation honors Naramore's modernist legacy while making a clear statement about what the building has become. Structural and seismic upgrades, accessibility improvements, and infrastructure modernization brought the building into the present. New science classrooms, labs, a health center, and an expanded student services center gave Seattle World School the programmatic foundation it needed to serve its students fully.
At the heart of the building is the Welcome Center, designed as a communal gathering space where students, staff, and families can find one another. The interior draws its colors and patterns from the many cultures represented in the student body, a design choice that tells every student who walks through the door that their background is not something to leave outside. For a community defined by transition, the building offers something every new arrival deserves: a place that feels like it was made for them.
Work
