Terraset Elementary School

 school, place with historical importance, interesting place, primary education, underground facility

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This unusual elementary school was originally built entirely underground, with windowed "peeking alcoves" supported by concrete columns at intervals along two sides of the structure. The grass-covered roof was all that was visible in satellite imagery, aside from the entry courtyard at the North end of the structure. The rest of the school remained hidden from view.

Opened in 1977 in the wake of an energy crisis, Terraset was an experiment in energy efficient structures. After Fairfax County Public Schools were denied a $625,000 grant by the National Science Foundation, the project was in danger of being sidelined in favor of a more conventional design. In an interesting turn of events, the entire financial outlay for the project was donated by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. The open space above the entry courtyard originally held a solar panel array, which was slated to provide all of the school's energy. Unfortunately, the panels were optimized for the arid constant climate of the Middle Eastern desert, and proved too delicate for Virginia's wide variations in temperature and humidity. The solar collectors were dismantled in the late '80s on cost and safety grounds (in the winter, ice was known to form on them and subsequently crash to the ground below). The concrete support posts that originally held the panels were left and continued to be visible on the roof until the the building's reconfiguration in the mid-2010s (see below). The school's buried architecture quickly proved its worth in saved energy costs, even without the solar panels. Indeed, the heat retention efficiency of the buried structure meant the building required air conditioning even during the winter months.

Visitors were numerous enough in the early years of Terraset's existence that a small visitor's center was called for. This structure was located at the extreme North end of the property, between the parking lot and Ridge Heights Road. The building remained standing, unused, until at least the late '90s, but has since been demolished.

From December 2013 through the 2014-2015 school year, Terraset underwent a radical change. To keep the school current and keep up with increasing demands in capacity, the entire interior of the school was gutted. The roof remained, but everything inside was modified and reconfigured. The school currently retains its grass and earth roof, but portions of the building extend out from underneath this covering, the arts and music wing being the most prominent example of this. Most of the original entry courtyard has been enclosed, and the two footbridges that extended from the parking area to the roof were replaced with a single bridge, which leads to a new second story entry atrium through which students and visitors travel to access the main portion of the school beneath.

Although the reconfiguration and expansion of Terraset extended the useful lifetime of the building, it did erase some of what made the school unique to begin with. One of the defining characteristics of the school's plan as originally built was the series of four vast round areas called "learning centers". Each learning center consisted of a number of door-less classrooms arranged around a round common area and supporting column. Today, only the parts of these circles that formed the exterior diameter of the building remain. The center of the school was originally home to the library, another open area with no doors. The defining feature of this area was a soaring high ceiling that culminated in a pyramidal peak with skylights that let natural light into the parts of the building furthest from windows. This pyramid was removed to make way for the roof-level entry atrium that lies at the end of the pedestrian bridge from the parking lot.

While students who attended Terraset from the 1970s through the mid 2000s may scarcely recognize the school now, the grassy roof that gave it so much of its identity remains. In fact, it could be argued that the radical changes the school has undergone since its birth reaffirm the revolutionary nature of its creation in the first place.

A sister school to Terraset was constructed three years later in Burke, called Terra Centre Elementary School, to largely the same design as Terraset (though not Saudi-funded). Like Terraset, that school has also undergone additions/reconfigurations to cope with increased capacity demands.

www.fcps.edu/TerrasetES/

Current Principal - Lindsay Trout