Condensed Version

This project was extremely complex compared to the average school site. The tight urban site is within walking distance of downtown Los Angeles on Wilshire Blvd, one of the busiest urban streets on the west coast. A 9 story building had to be demolished and multiple smaller buildings and houses as well. A busy existing street had to be vacated to assemble enough land to construct the project at all. The program called for space for 1521 students on this 8.3 acre site, which required that 160,000 square feet of school building and 35,000 square feet of raised play deck over parking be placed on only 361,735 SF of site area and still allow room for 5.2 acres of play area, a fire lane, parking for 151 cars and a lunch shelter.

This tight site required that a 3 story solution be used to fit the required area of classroom space in with a full gymnasium and multi-purpose room. This could only be achieved by spanning the top two floors over the gymnasium and multi-purpose rooms with a seismic separation joint. Two exterior stairs had to be connected by bridges and balconies to the exit stairs to maintain access which required extreme degrees of customization.