Honolulu's Punahou School opened a new building named for Hawaiian scholar and educator Mary Kawena Pukui, a bright note as students returned for the first day of school.

• The Mary Kawena Pukui Learning Commons debuted as students arrived for the new school year.
• It honors Pukui, a scholar who bridged traditional Hawaiian culture, music, and dance to the 1970s Hawaiian Renaissance, and who taught at Punahou in the 1930s.
• The building holds a library, engineering and emerging-tech labs, a teaching kitchen and café, plus collaborative classrooms built around project-based learning.
• A history wall shows what stood on the site before, tying the school's 185-year past to the new space.
• The building sits on Punahou's original 1841 location, where a small limestone schoolhouse grew into today's campus of nearly 4,000 students.

Outlook: The commons opens as a campus hub meant to push hands-on learning and community service in the year ahead.