Education Archives

Aragon Avenue ES

February 11, 2020/in PROJECTS, Education, Civic and Institutional/by SAdesignsJFAK

This addition to an existing elementary school in an underprivileged neighborhood in Los Angeles reflects the school district’s commitment to raise the quality of schools throughout the city. Composed of three different structures, the largest is a 32,800 square-foot structure that contains 16 new air-conditioned classrooms and underground parking. Two smaller structures provide a new kitchen and a lunch shelter.

The siting of the new structures creates a coherent campus plan. Adding a wing to the existing L-shaped structure, the new classrooms complete the street edge and define a large, central courtyard. The new kitchen and lunch shelter breaks down this courtyard into a series of smaller spaces. New outdoor bleachers and stairs accommodate the downward progression to the lower play area. One of the defining features of the new classroom building is a tall entry portal that aligns with a slot of space, guiding one’s approach.

The painting pattern takes its cues from the colorful houses in the surrounding neighborhood and acknowledges (without condoning) the popularity of tagging and graffiti. Providing a unique and unexpected element for the school’s students, its cheerful presence is also appreciated by the neighborhood’s residents.

PS #1 Elementary School Aftercare Building

February 11, 2020/in PROJECTS, Education/by SAdesignsJFAK

This 3500 square-foot building includes a new aftercare facility, kitchen, and classroom for Pluralistic School #1, an existing private elementary school in Santa Monica. Sitting between the school’s existing buildings and its athletic fields, the structure unifies the campus with a new circulation system that loops between the classrooms and the open space.

Including flexibly arranged areas for homework, crafts, and cooking, its location adjacent to the basketball court, soccer field, and general play yard assures easy flow between the various interior and exterior activities. Upstairs, the new classroom (with mezzanine), looks west over the fields to catch the ocean breezes and minimize the intrusion of noise from the yards below.

Throughout the project, structure is exposed so that the students can learn from the logic of construction. Generous use of windows and skylights creates a naturally ventilated, luminous environment in which students find it easy to concentrate. The project includes no air conditioning system and uses minimal energy or artificial lighting.

The exterior is clad in plaster and shiplapped cement board. Its joyful pattern draws from the school’s colors and reflects the sense of directed play that occurs both inside and outside its walls.

Green Dot E 27th Street Charter High Schools

February 11, 2020/in PROJECTS, Education, Civic and Institutional/by SAdesignsJFAK

The first LEED-certified charter school facility in Los Angeles was born of the transformation of two manufacturing warehouses into a pair of high schools.

Limited to 500 students, each school has its own separate administration, as well as its own architectural identity. Inhabiting the original brick warehouse, the school called “Animo Justice” utilizes warm, red and yellow hues and is entered from the south side of the shared exterior entry courtyard. In contrast, “Animo Ralph Bunche,” the school housed in the tilt-up concrete structure, uses a cooler, blue and green palette, and is accessed via a dramatic steel stair and second floor roof deck on the north side of the courtyard. While each school has its own circulation system, each has independent access to a shared gym and library situated near the center of the combined facility. Skylights are used extensively to ensure that each classroom has access to natural light and a view of the sky.

Located on the edge of a residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles (formerly known as South Central), these facilities offer the promise of a better future to this historically underprivileged area.

Caltech GALCIT

February 11, 2020/in PROJECTS, Education/by SAdesignsJFAK

The challenge posed by the renovation of the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories was to create a cohesive, forward-looking image for a world-class science and engineering research department looking to rebrand itself within the larger context of Caltech. The project transformed a historically-protected building designed by Bertram Goodhue in the early 20th century.

The solution involved using the very same concepts that underlie flight itself, specifically the idea of aerodynamic flow, and the way that geometry, form, and material properties create differential pressures that are the source of lift. Applied to space, architectural form, and two-dimensional wall coverings, the result is a series of elements – many hanging at ceiling level – that create dynamic environments as well as refer to the work that is happening in the laboratories and classrooms. For instance, the pattern of felt in the conference room ceiling is taken from a seminal flow diagram developed at Caltech, while the form of the lobby ceiling was inspired by the premise of how air rushing through it would be altered by its columns and walls, such as in a wind tunnel.

Caltech Resnick Institute

February 11, 2020/in PROJECTS, Education/by SAdesignsJFAK

One of the most effective sustainable design strategies is to reuse old buildings and not sacrifice their already substantial carbon footprint. This project does exactly that, and to boot for a new facility dedicated to creating new sustainability technologies – a double win. The dark interior was opened up and illuminated with a large skylight; the long, hanging “sunshades” that blocked almost all of the building’s available light were sawed off; and the bridge that separated the building from the rest of the campus was replaced with a light-filled pavilion for casual socializing, presentations (this is a popular destination for school field trips), and receptions. This facility catalyzes innovation, and advances scientific breakthroughs through promoting interdisciplinary interaction.

The iconography inside reinforces the mission of the facility. The color palette is derived from the colors found in the visible spectrum (or rainbow), favoring the high-energy reds and yellows that new photovoltaic panels, developed in the labs, seek to corral. Reminding scientists and visitors alike of the urgency of the work being performed inside, the building’s core is clad with customized images of the rotating earth that were obtained from JPL. As one rotates around the core, so too does the view of the earth.

UCLA Kinross Recreation Center

February 11, 2020/in PROJECTS, Education, Wellness, Civic and Institutional/by SAdesignsJFAK

With the displacement of an existing fitness center geared specifically towards servicing the university’s graduate student population, UCLA opted to take over a prominent off-campus corner at the intersection of Veteran and Kinross Avenues (currently used for parking) and locate a new fitness center there. A series of modular portable buildings was envisioned to be fitted out for this purpose.

The resultant 9,990 SF facility upgraded the graduate students’ existing workout facility and provide a dynamic, light-filled and open environment in which to work out and socialize. The interior opens out to an exterior training area with an overhead canopy structure that provides needed shade. Service zones have been located to create acoustic buffers against the traffic and automobiles in the vicinity.

UCLA Bruin Fitness Center

February 11, 2020/in PROJECTS, Education, Wellness, Civic and Institutional/by SAdesignsJFAK

The Bruin Fitness Center is a 15,000 square-foot facility. It features open-plan cardio, strength, and stretching zones tied together by a central circulation spine for an easy-to-navigate layout.

The fitness center occupies what was once parking and storage for campus housing maintenance staff. Extensive mechanical equipment in the existing space had to be considered, worked around, protected, and at times relocated in order to make this programmatic shift possible. The material palette blends some of the raw materiality of the parking garage’s existing ducts, plumbing, and concrete with the elegant and sustainable material choices of the Carnesale dining hall above.

Since the fitness center is partially submerged with limited access to daylight, the fitness center is oriented towards the major opening of the space: a large, operable glass garage door. The creative use of high quality artificial lighting, graphic wallpapers, and color throughout help to ensure that the facility never feels like a basement.

Roberts Pavilion, Claremont McKenna College

February 11, 2020/in PROJECTS, Education, Wellness/by SAdesignsJFAK

The sculptural form of Roberts Pavilion, which bulges and retreats according to the particularities of its tight site, creates an iconic image that helps brand the college, and simultaneously anchors a new and important campus entry. Each of its facades has been designed to simultaneously take advantage of existing views and limit heat gain, its terra cotta cladding providing gravitas to the structure while serving as a heat sink, absorbing heat during the day and emitting it at night.

Inside, a three-level main arena sits at the heart of the facility, around which the other programmatic elements are organized and accessed by a series of wide “streets” designed to promote interaction and community. (In fact, as the College has no formal “student center,” this building has stepped into that function.) Spacious yet compact, strategic transparencies throughout the structure create strong visual connections and a welcoming environment overall, where anyone feels invited to try a new activity. Providing a venue for music, drama, and school congregations in addition to sports, the design of the Lobby eschews the typical sports-related imagery and instead presents a “Character Wall” that incorporates three-dimensional letters that spell out the names of ten important character traits in ten different languages and cultures, thereby representing the diversity of the college’s students, its global outlook, and the academic puzzles that are at the heart of its mission.

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