In a town of just 8,000 people, a 310,000-square-foot building is a big deal, especially if it's the new high school.

Back in 1975, when the Eden Institute was founded in a New Jersey church basement to serve children with autism, the disorder was considered relatively rare, then estimated at a nationwide rate of 1 in 10,000 births.

In Japan, where the birthrate is dropping and the elderly population is rising, more schools are closing than opening. But in Kumamoto prefecture on the nation's southernmost island, Kyushu, the city of Uto was faced with an aging elementary school and nearly 800 youngsters to educate.

Encircled by a stand of towering deciduous trees, Benjamin E. Mays High School keeps a low profile, despite having been home to such notable alumni as visual artist Radcliffe Bailey and musician Cee Lo Green, and currently being the largest school serving grades nine through 12 in the Atlanta Public Schools (APS). 

A two-story, 218,500-square-foot public high school with classrooms, a student activity center, a multipurpose forum for presentations and lectures, a library, TV and radio studios, a gymnasium, and offices.

“True Science thrives best in glass houses, where everyone can look in,” wrote Nobel Prize–winning molecular biologist Max Perutz. Boston-based William Rawn Associates, Architects (WRA) took this sentiment to heart in the design of their Pritzker Science Center at Milton Academy, which puts visibility, in every sense of the word, front and center.

A two-story, 50,590-square-foot public K–7 elementary school with classrooms, offices, a prekindergarten, special education classrooms, a computer lab, a library, a gymnasium with a stage, and an adult literacy center serving the community.

As many American architects know too well, public schools in the U.S. lose out big-time on the scale of invention compared to their European and Asian counterparts.