In a district plagued by years of bond failures and overcrowding, a high school initiates a fresh start with collegiate learning tracks and a complementary campus.

“Who are you?” asked a Machias Elementary School first grader as she ran out of her classroom on the way to recess and spotted out-of-place adults.

Smithgroup had completed four Microsoft Technology Centers (MTC) for the software giant by the time the multidisciplinary firm was asked to design a fifth, in Southfield, Michigan.

Moshe Safdie was nibbling crab cakes in the recently completed, 150,000-square-foot glass-and-concrete headquarters he designed for the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C.