CHAMPAIGN — Mary and Tony Hynes have been watching the progress on the new Washington Elementary School from the outside.

"We've been driving by, watching it go up," Mary Hynes said.

On Monday afternoon, the Hynes — parents of Alex, who is just finishing second grade — got a look at it from the inside.

"There's nothing like walking through it," Hynes said. "I love the openness of it."

They were among parents, Champaign school district administrators, school board members, representatives of the teacher and staff unions, and city officials who toured the new building. Although it isn't finished — there is still work to be done on finishing the floors and ceilings, and adding cabinets in classrooms, shelves in the library and equipment elsewhere — visitors got an idea of how it will look when it's ready for students.

The school is a colorful one — turquoise and bright green are the dominant colors on walls throughout, with purple, orange, dark blue and yellow in various areas. Classrooms are grouped according to grade level, and the three classrooms for each grade level open via folding glass doors onto "piazzas," or common spaces that can be used for collaborative activities.

"Classrooms often have a sense of an enclosed space," Tony Hynes said. "Here, everything seems much more open. It flows between spaces. It has a very different feel to it."

Another parent, Melanie Paul, added: "I think the piazzas are a very ingenious use of space — to open some doors and there is a common area that three classrooms can use.

"They seem to have done a really good job of fitting creative (spaces) and green technology into a limited space, on a limited site," she continued. "That's what's most impressive to me."

When the new building opens in August, it will be a magnet school with a theme of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. The STEM theme will be evident throughout the building, said architect Stu Brodsky, of OWP/P of Chicago.

The gym floor will include images of geometric equations, in addition to lines for the basketball court. The lights in each piazza form the pattern of different constellations.

Windows in the music and art rooms on the second floor look down onto the commons area and a STEM lab space for experiments, respectively. The idea, Brodsky said, is that everything is connected to learning, and each subject is connected to the others.

The school will have a geothermal heating and cooling system. Several rooms have "solar tube" skylights. When enough light is coming through them, the room lights will shut off.

The school's roof will have a reflective white coating that will reduce heat absorption and make the building easier to cool.

Brodsky said the school will be 40 percent more efficient than a traditional school, due to the geothermal, energy-efficient lighting and energy-efficient windows.

The school will have an outdoor courtyard with plantings, including raised vegetable beds that tie in with the science curriculum for kindergarten students. In addition, each piazza will have a door onto a small outdoor learning area.

Several hallways on the second floor overlook areas below, including the library and STEM lab. Some visitors Monday expressed concerns about safety, but Brodsky said the railing height is code-compliant and he was comfortable with it.

Tony Hynes said he is eager to learn more about the curriculum for the school.

"The programs will make the space work," he said. "Bringing the programs into the space and integrating the curriculum and activities will be interesting to see."

His wife Mary added: "I think we're going to be very happy here."