ENTROPIC and 2L Architects & Engineers have received second prize for The Forest Nexus in the 2023 competition for a new high school on M. Marcinkevičiaus Street in Vilnius, Lithuania. The proposal gives the school a wider civic role, bringing education, recreation and neighbourhood life into an architecture shaped by its forest setting.
Three interconnected programme areas draw on the logic of a Venn diagram. Where the volumes overlap, shared spaces become the social centre of the building: settings for informal learning, conversation and collective activity. Individual functions retain their identity, but the architecture makes their points of contact productive rather than reducing them to circulation.
The building is compactly positioned near the street to limit its footprint within the woodland. Paths from the surrounding landscape continue onto an accessible roof, extending outdoor activity above the building instead of distributing it across the forest floor. Classrooms and common spaces form a connected sequence between focused study and wider exchange.
The recognition marks an important expression of ENTROPIC's approach to educational architecture: the school as community infrastructure, with its shared spaces carrying as much design attention as its teaching rooms. Developed with 2L Architects & Engineers, The Forest Nexus explores how a learning environment can connect a neighbourhood while maintaining a direct relationship with the landscape that gives it character.
Explore The Forest Nexus · Competition organiser's results
