LANGSTON HUGHES

The building surrounds a courtyard Discovery Garden designed to encourage interaction with adjacent special needs classrooms. Two-story volumes containing library, gym, administration, and music functions form the building’s four outside corners and provide sheltered entries for the students. The school is part of a larger campus that includes two outdoor play areas, a second garden planted with species native to the Illinois prairie, and an accessible wheelchair softball field. The building contains an “extensive” green roof, roof monitors that provide natural day-lighting to classrooms and an innovative radiant floor heating and cooling distribution system. Langston Hughes obtained LEED Gold Certification under the USGBC LEED for Schools Program.