Just a few steps from the crystal blue waters of Carlisle Bay in Bridgetown, Barbados, AMMA Architects’ Oceana Innovation Hub is a two-story mass timber building wrapped in bands of bright pastel, with deep verandas and louvered accordion shutters that open directly to the sea breeze. Its interconnected pyramidal roofs evoke, among other things, origami sculpture, an abstracted mountain range, fragmented crystals, or even shark teeth. The 5,000-square-foot building, designed with the XQ Institute, an Oakland, California–based nonprofit focused on rethinking high school education, along with the Barbados Ministry of Educational Transformation, is the first built piece of a national experiment: An attempt to remake school architecture around project-based learning, climate resilience, and a more locally rooted vision of education.
Source: In Barbados, a New School for an Island Future – Metropolis