Hawai\u02bbi School Facilities Authority<\/a> was one of four winners in the 2025 Mass Timber Competition: Building Sustainable Schools, a competition sponsored by the Softwood Lumber Board and the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service. The competition awarded a total of $1.8 million to projects promoting mass timber use in K-12 educational environments.<\/p>\nDesign focuses on culture and sustainability<\/p>\n
The winning design for the new Central Maui school incorporates mass timber \u2014 an engineered, fire-resistant wood product that combines smaller pieces of wood into large, strong structural components \u2014 and biophilic design, which connects building occupants with their environment.<\/p>\n
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Riki Fujitani, school facilities executive director, pointed out that the design-build approach allows the authority to choose durable, sustainable materials. He added that in Hawai\u02bbi, \u201chonoring our host culture and building in harmony with nature and respect for the \u2018\u0101ina are critically important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mass timber is seen as an effective alternative to traditional steel and concrete, offering benefits such as sustainability, fire resistance and faster construction. These advantages can mitigate supply-chain challenges and material costs. The new campus is planned to house both an elementary and a middle school with a capacity of up to 1,650 students, although the initial phase opening in 2030 will be a middle school designed for 300 students. The team designing the project is a collaboration between Hawai\u02bbi Off-Grid, MKThink, R.T. Tanaka Engineers, the Mo\u02bbolelo Group and the authority.<\/p>\n
Project funding and timeline<\/p>\n
The Hawai\u02bbi State Legislature has allocated $76 million to date for the new campus. This initial funding is a significant jump from the $20 million initially proposed for planning and design. The authority expects to have a final master plan for the school approved before the end of 2026.<\/p>\n
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The project aims to address capacity issues in Central Maui, which were exacerbated by the August 2023 Lahaina wildfire displacement and ongoing housing development in the region.<\/p>\n
Community engagement and next steps<\/p>\n
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The project continues to rely on community input. The authority\u2019s Mo\u02bbolelo Group is leading the community engagement process for the school\u2019s development. Community members were invited to open house informational sessions in September at the University of Hawai\u02bbi Maui College\u2019s Pilina Center. There, they discussed the project\u2019s scope and timeline. According to project officials, curated public feedback is being logged. It will be considered during the ongoing planning phase.<\/p>\n
The authority is working to establish statewide standards for school construction, including design guidelines, construction specifications, standard technical drawings and a commissioning plan. These are aimed to make new schools scalable and repeatable across the state. These standards are part of the process being applied to the Central Maui school project.<\/p>\n
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Interested residents can visit the project website, newcentralmauischool.org, for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An illustration shows the location of the new Central Maui school site in Waikap\u016b. PC: Hawaii School Facilities…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":362736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[175918,175919,746,175920,3272,67601,175921,175922,159,67,132,68,175923,175924],"class_list":{"0":"post-362735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-biophilic-design","9":"tag-central-maui-school","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-hawaii-school-facilities-authority","12":"tag-legislature","13":"tag-mass-timber","14":"tag-moolelo-group","15":"tag-riki-fujitani","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-waikapu","21":"tag-waikapu-country-town"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115509799496536237","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/2025.11.05_NCMS-SITE.png\")
An illustration shows the location of the new Central Maui school site in Waikap\u016b. PC: Hawaii School Facilities Authority<\/p>\n