Description

The jagged and inherently unstable forms of the Los Angeles foothills inform the language of the buildings as the architecture takes its organisational cues from the natural topography. Two rows of fragmented interlocking built form are set together tightly on either side of a long central ‘canyon’, or street, which cuts through the face of the hillside, as might a geological fault line. The street becomes the main social space sitting between the departmental areas and classrooms. As a counterpoint to the suburban nature of its surroundings, the street encloses and constricts this space to mimic the urban experience of a European town centre. The plan is organised around this street in the form of three schools within a single school plan, with two large classroom blocks and a sports and social building.

The site, which runs parallel with the suburban street below, is a steep slope. To develop this complex match between the topography and the brief, with its extensive architectural programme, provided a significant challenge. In a sense the architect optimises the relationship between the rocky landscape and the new building, so that the building takes the form of a highly jagged sculptural layer defined by a thin metallic continuously undulating roof. The terrain folds around the main buildings and is carved out to form a solid/void rhythm across the site, a strategy which creates outside courts or social meeting spaces between the blocks, giving light and air to the dense accommodation schedule; these courtyards provide relief from the tightness of the built form.

The teaching spaces are organised in three 250 student classroom clusters (which was a programmatic requirement). The lower block has two storeys of accommodation, the upper block has three storeys. However, these teaching blocks are articulated as solid slabs of building, which is in sharp contrast to the lighter, more fragmented shapes that define the central street. The blocks lean over the social street creating a surreal landscape which is protective and enclosing yet slightly threatening at the same time. The sports and social building contains a gymnasium with changing rooms and a cafeteria, which acts as the social heart of the complex. There is a monumental stairway which bisects the linear blocks. It functions doubly as a main pedestrian route from the entrance off the lower level street and up to the roof terrace and football field above; the stairway dissolves into an outdoor amphitheatre at its highest point which is embedded in the hillside. There is an administration block, effectively a smaller fourth element completing the overall composition. It is at the main knuckle point of the north-south and east-west geometries providing a secure entrance threshold to the self-contained confines of the interior.

It is almost impossible to view this building in its totality, a series of fragmented architectural events interweaving with the landscape to create rich spatial tension. It is very unusual to find such a stirring sense of space within a school building, and time will tell whether this has a positive effect on the quality of learning. It is a building which emphasises architecture over and above almost anything else.

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Originally published in: Mark Dudek, Schools and Kindergartens: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2015.