There’s a special ingredient to Campus Recreation Centers that can completely alter the outcome. It’s not the most up-to-date Building Information Modeling tools, the largest amount of money to spend, or the highest paid consultants. The magic is in the students. In a recent Student Recreation Center (SRC) designed for Cal State Northridge, we worked with a group of students who treated the project like a “cause.” 
Although many of them were set to graduate before the facility’s completion, they were driven to help create a place that was set apart and a legacy for future Northridge Matadors.
The students came prepared. They knew their student body was unique, and that their needs were different from other Cal State campuses. This is where we started coming up with unconventional solutions. To their credit, they didn’t flatly reject ideas just because they’d never seen them built. There was trust that isn’t always present with people who’ve done a lot of these kinds of buildings.
They took time to think about and express their priorities, one of which was always sustainability. If we proposed a design feature that’d increase the eco-friendliness and efficiency of the SRC, they were all for it. In this post, I’ll review a few of the outcomes that came about as a result of inspiration from the students, the faculty, the program, the site, and the unique challenges of the project.
SKY HIGH AMBITIONS
The student-funded rec center at Cal State Northridge has a very unique ceiling plane. It’s kind of a subtle thing but it’s one of the distinct interior features. Typically, with gymnasium spaces, ceilings are raw and a lot of structure, ductwork, and big, hanging industrial light fixtures are seen. The Northridge SRC is a more modern, student rec center. It’s not only about the gym, but it’s a place to relax and hang out with friends. The special, more finished ceiling does several things: it integrates the skylights and provides a return air path for the displacement ventilation system. Fundamental design choices made together by the structural and mechanical engineering, architecture and planning designers made this possible. This exemplifies integrated design – it’s all hands on deck from the beginning, committed, working toward a common goal.
CAMPUS BUILDING
Although the west façade is solid, it’s the same material (perforated), as the other student buildings on campus. It’s the pot of gold at the end of Magnolia Walk. We call it “campus building,” when the building you add doesn’t just serve its purpose, it makes the entire campus better, and more cohesive. The SRC at Cal State Northridge is the grand finale of the heavily trafficked, magnolia-lined walk. It also helps site the building and incorporates the school’s colors.
PANORAMIC AND INTERIOR VIEWS
People didn’t realize that the top floor captures a panoramic view of the context. When you’re on the first floor, you forget that the campus is surrounded by this amazing valley. They had no idea that the campus is encircled by such beauty – it’s a larger-scale gesture, zooming out, where architecture adds to the perception and experience of “place.”
We wanted to create interior views too; there’s an interior landscape inside of this rec center. The building, if you remember from Living Rec Centers Part 2, is 600 feet long. It’s different as you circulate vertically through it – the ground floor has all of the small spaces (fitness rooms, locker rooms, studios), and as you move upward, the scale gets bigger and bigger. How students interact with each other, changes, as well. It’s interesting. It’s typically the reverse (gym on bottom, small spaces on top).
STRIKING ARCHITECTURE
The contrast between the two, long elevations is architecturally dramatic. It makes sense for this building and it works – although it is unusual to have such difference in opacity between different elevations on a building. Again, instead of raw and unfinished, it’s a more elegant solution – unexpected and appreciated by the people who occupy it.
Glenn Carels is a Design Principal at California-based LPA Inc. As the California State University system moves toward greener campuses, Carels has played a critical role in the implementation of their sustainability guidelines and initiatives. During his 28-year career, he’s garnered 44 AIA awards for his design work in Higher Education facilities.
It’s not every day A-list celebs attend the grand openings of our libraries. Recently, in Malibu, hundreds came out—including Mayor Laura Zahn Rosenthal, Pierce Brosnan and his wife Keely, and Dick Van Dyke—to celebrate the opening of a very special library remodel. 
A dynamic metamorphosis of what was once a dark, dated, and inefficient space into what is now a light, bright, and sustainable environment that reflects the history and unique nature of this beachfront community.
Malibu is famous for its warm, sandy beaches and for the many Hollywood movie stars who call the city home. Its scenic beauty is legendary, and serves as the backdrop for countless movies, television shows, and music videos (e.g., Gidget, Charlie’s Angels, Planet of the Apes, The Mod Squad, The Big Lebowski, Two and a Half Men, and Iron Man, to name a few).
The existing Malibu library experienced only minor modifications in its 50-year existence. While not an inspiring space, it overlooked an amazing, new city park, about 500 feet from the coast. The City of Malibu and the Los Angeles County public library system sought to transform this structure into an exciting, functional, and sustainable civic statement.
NEW AND IMPROVED
How does one take the same space, and make it feel three times larger, lighter and brighter? Hollow out the existing library building shell, and reinterpret the space to accommodate a modern, high tech facility. That’s how.
With only one glazed opening—at the far south end of the structure, several round clerestory structures were added to allow natural light to filter deep into the space. Fixed windows were removed and replaced with glass bi-fold doors that open and connect the interior with the new, 3,500-square-foot library garden. The garden features a small presentation stage, a reading orchard, and can be used as a venue for functions and special events. Inspired by the Malibu Coast, the garden’s design incorporates an abstracted wind sail, water metaphors, and undulating shapes and forms.
The library is on track to receive LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Sustainable designelements include extensive reuse of interior, non-structural components and materials—inspired by a “do less” attitude for the renovation. Healthy indoor air quality measures were taken both during and after construction. Efficient, indirect and direct lighting fixtures use less power and daylighting controls optimize energy performance. Low-flow and dual-flush plumbing fixtures reduce the building’s water consumption by 35 percent. The library’s landscape palette is comprised of drought-tolerant, California natives; a more efficient irrigation system is also in place.
The outside of the library is clad in large-scale, sustainable, pressed panels detailed in varying shades of blue to simulate the colors of the sea. A dramatic wave inside the library is made from recycled milk-bottle acrylic panels—recycled materials exceed 20 percent of everything used and more than 20 percent of these materials were manufacture within a 500-mile radius of the library.
So tell us, does the Malibu Library now meet the criteria for successful library design?
Leave us your feedback in the comments section of the video. Thank you for reading this post, we look forward to your comments.
Rick D’Amato is a Senior Designer and Principal at California-based LPA Inc. For more than 20 years D’Amato’s designed award winning spaces for corporate office facilities, retail projects, schools, city halls, libraries and community centers. He is an active member of the American Institute of Architects, the U.S. Green Building Council, the California Library Association, American Public Library Association and Public Library Association.
By LPA Blogger Kate Mraw
We hope you’ve been enjoying our posts about the latest in k-12 learning environments, research based design, and the very special charter high school in schematic design for the Orangewood Children’s Foundation. Today, we’ll tie all of these themes together, with further insights about classroom design and how it can keep foster teens and at-risk youth engaged in their learning experience. Remember, The Academy is a 320-student charter high that the Orangewood Children’s Foundation has brought LPA on board to design and develop; its goal is to groom its students with the skills and confidence they’ll need to break the cycle of abuse, and live healthy, productive lives.
How can classroom design help achieve these objectives? Through a model of Project Based Learning (PBL). PBL is a rigorous, hands-on approach to education. The method provides students with the opportunity to work in collaborative teams, gain career awareness and knowledge, use a variety of technologies, and present their work to audiences from a variety of fields.
At The Academy, LPA is focused on providing a 21st century educational environment. Through our research based design efforts, we’ve determined that by providing varied spaces, students have the ability to engage in small, medium or large groups as part of their educational career. No two classrooms will be alike. The students will move throughout the building during their day and participate in PBL activities that demand different approaches for each of their foundational studies. By creating variety in these rooms, the students become more engaged.
As Suzanne Schechtman mentioned in Research Based Design for K-12 Schools, one of the overarching themes for students at The Academy is to build community and create high expectations. The Student Services Building, at the heart of the urban campus, houses a Student Union with a performance space, which allows students to collaborate. Designed for both active and passive learners, the Student Union includes a second-story walkway and a terraced balcony for the introverted learners to engage with activities at their own comfort level. Additionally, the entry to the Student Services Building is also the entry to the main gallery of the campus.
The Gallery holds significance as the link between the academic building and the community environment of the Student Union. A double-height space, this environment will feature opportunities for rotating exhibitions of student work and will serve to greet visitors, students, and staff alike who make use of the administrative services, the Black Box Theater, the second-floor arts and technology classrooms and the Student Union. Aside from being equipped to display finished work, the gallery is also a place for ongoing project work from the art and technology labs of the second floor. Students from these studios can break out into the gallery to work on projects, brainstorm ideas, and critique each other’s work. Incorporating this type of space sets The Academy apart from traditional high school environments, constantly reminding students of the community they are a part of and the greatness they can achieve.
This process for LPA has been a fully integrated design process. From a researched based design focus through the design of the systems and features, the campus at The Academy will be a teaching tool for the school community—and a catalyst for changed lives.
Kate Mraw is an Interior Designer at California-based LPA Inc. Her K-12 educational spaces encourage collaboration, experimentation, and instruction. Mraw is a LEED Accredited Professional. She received her Bachelor of Science in Interior Design from the University of Texas, Austin School of Architecture.
What a week. Not only is Earth Week upon us, culminating in Earth Day this Sunday, April 22, but we have the pleasure of sharing, that LPA has officially been named Engineering News-Record’s California Design Firm of the Year.
“LPA was chosen based on a variety of accomplishments in the past year, including revenue in the state, major projects completed or begun, sustainability initiatives, industry awards and recognition, and community outreach,” writes Editor Robert Carlsen. According to Carlsen, our firm will be featured in the June 4 issue of ENR California in addition to their annual Top Design Firms rankings.
In other news, we learned that our office in downtown San Diego—in the historic Wonder Bread building, built circa 1924—earned LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The plaque arrives in four weeks, and the timing couldn’t be better. This East Village design studio is one of about 100 LEED projects in San Diego, and the first to be completed using LEED-CI Version 2009. “We like to be innovators,” said LPA’s Director of Mechanical Engineering, Erik Ring.
In the April issue of COAST magazine, more eco-friendly leadership was recognized in Out of the Box. The five-page spread gives an inside look at the sustainable renovation and expansion Principal and Director of School Planning Jim Kisel underwent, with his midcentury home in Laguna Beach, CA. Originally built in 1959, the most obvious sustainable strategy is the reuse of the entire, existing home—which grew from a “cute” 825 square feet to a spacious 2,000 square feet (with plenty of room to entertain). 
Optimized solar orientation, deep overhangs and operable glass allow the house to breath with little mechanical assistance. Mixes of renewable and exposed building materials form the pallet, and eliminate the need for secondary finishes.
In keeping with our theme that conservation is the best place to start, we share with you some interesting facts and figures, on simple practices that add up to big savings:
- By using recycled paper last year, LPA saved 1,818 trees, 776,800 gallons of water waste, and 169,384 pounds of co2.*
- By automatically setting our printers to print double-sided, we saved another 718 trees, 304,800 gallons of waste water, and 66,384 pounds of co2.*
- By eliminating plastic (PVC) binders and converting to recycled ones, LPA saved 1,444 kilowatt-hour (kWh) of energy, 4.1 barrels of oil, and 7.5 cubic yards of landfill space—in 2011, alone.*
Additional stats are available from research of our 2011 printing volumes, however we thought you’d find these the most useful because you can implement these ideas anywhere both on the job and in your home. For additional goodies, be sure to visit our Facebook Fan page where we’re sharing new, fresh architectural eye candy, every day, for your enjoyment this week. Have a wonderful Earth Week dear readers.
*These figures are compiled from research of LPA’s printing volumes for 2011, conducted by ProGroup. For additional information, contact ProGroup President, Cindy Kennedy, at (949) 748-5400.
Rochelle Veturis Coles is the Media and Public Relations Director at California-based LPA Inc.
By Guest Blogger Michelle Loeb, Professional Studio Intern
Ferris wheels, balboa bars, frozen bananas, bumper cars and arcade games, craving the Balboa Fun Zone yet? ExplorOcean is located on a beautiful waterfront site, with lovely weather and views to Newport Bay where one can see sailboats cruising through the harbor out to sea. Newport Beach is known for its annual boat parade and affluent community; there is an abundance of nautical interest. What a place for a nautical museum.
For our final Professional Studio Program internship project, we were tasked with creating our own design for the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum’s new ExplorOcean museum. Here’s what we came up with.
ICONIC, IMMERSIVE, INTERACTIVE EXPLORATION
We want ExplorOcean to become an iconic feature of Newport Beach while respecting the historic nature of the site. Looking at the iconic aspects of the immediate area, the Balboa Pavilion (built in 1906), the Balboa Island Ferry (built in1919) and Ruby’s diner on Balboa Pier (added to the 1906 pier in 1982), we drew a connection between the three and generated a distinct line through our site influencing our building form and design. The Balboa Fun Zone holds a dear place in the hearts of visitors and locals alike. We incorporated the classic attractions while providing an exciting oceanic experience.
First and foremost the building is a nautical museum: a place to celebrate the historical and modern aspects of exploration and to excite minds for the future of this type of investigation. Our form was created to emulate the body of alluring water that provides endless exploration. We gained inspiration from the motion water takes as a boat passes through it. 
The boat, in our building’s case, is an approach—an experience of becoming engulfed in the building. Visitors journey through the waves of our form, viewing glimpses of what is to come in the museum. The journey ends with the ultimate reward, priceless views of Newport Bay.
The client, Newport Harbor Nautical Museum, wants more than a museum, they want to give back to the community and educate young minds about the wonders of exploration. They desired a design that would revitalize the area and attract visitors—old and new.
One of the biggest site challenges is simply that there is no ‘back side’. So how does one provide service access to the building? We overcame this challenge by separating many of the service components to the building edge that fronts a dead-end street. The opposite side of the site is adjacent to the ferry terminal to Balboa Island, a great way to have onlookers enjoy ExplorOcean, but also a traffic issue often with a large queue. This constraint was addressed by our unique pedestrian approach through our building.
The site is oriented so that the northern face of our building is directed toward the waterfront, a rare opportunity for the west coast. We allowed glazing to be the dominant material on the waterfront side to provide soft northern daylight and to give onlookers visual interaction—from the exterior spaces to the interior ones. Electronically controlled operable windows allow for night and day ventilation, as needed. A gabion wall on the southern face of the building provides thermal mass to cool interior spaces during the day and warm them at night. Photovoltaic panels help to offset the building’s energy needs.
ExplorOcean is more than a museum; it is a place to excite all senses and ages in nautical exploration. By creating an immersive, interactive experience of nautical exploration, ExplorOcean will educate many about the mysterious ever-changing ocean for years to come. It’s a legacy Newport Beach will be proud to leave for future generations.
For more information about the LPA-Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Professional Studio Program, e-mail dgilmore[at]lpainc[dot]com.
Last week, we shared with you our ambitious mission: to create sustainable places and spaces that truly enrich the lives of those who use them. As we strive to make this mission a reality through more supportive, thoughtful, and informed design solutions it’s exciting to see this play out, in a real world example. As learning becomes more active, it is our job, as K-12 school designers, to discover how classroom environments can better support learning activities. In the following example, you’ll see how engaging learning environments can not only produce successful learners, but change lives as well.
THE ACADEMY
The Academy is a 320-student charter high that LPA has designed for the Orangewood Children’s Foundation. Their mission is to provide innovative services for abused and neglected children, teens, young adults, and at-risk families to end the cycle of child abuse, one life at a time. The 115,000-square-foot academic downtown is paired with a 40,000-square-foot residential village, where 80 students will board with guardian families.
Why the need for such a high school? In Orange County, there are more than 35,000 reports of suspected child abuse, neglect or abandonment each year. Since 1981, the Orangewood Children’s Foundation has reached more than 74,000 foster and at-risk youth with innovative and effective programs and services. Their experience demonstrates that by the time a foster child starts high school they have had as many as 10 placements in foster homes and attended as many as 15 different schools. Students often suffer with a lack of stability, consistency, and belonging, all critical factors in creating life-long success.
In order to experience success, these young people need to have a stable living environment and excellent educational opportunities during their high school years.
Orange County’s foster youth need the opportunity to establish permanent relationships where they can remain connected for the rest of their lives with either their natural family or a group of caring adults. The Orangewood Children’s Foundation has undertaken development of The Academy, a charter high school that will provide foster teens and at-risk youth with a solid foundation for life, instilling in them the skills and confidence needed to live healthy, productive lives that ultimately break the cycle of abuse.
Symbolically, The Academy is a microcosm of the world that these children will encounter and need to find success in. One of their tools for success will be education, and this will be an important step in solidifying their status as life-long learners. Since many of the children residing on campus will have little – to no – mobility, the place where they “live and learn” must create a variety of spaces and imagery that can inspire and help them become productive citizens. Urban Village components encompassed at The Academy include:
- Neighborhoods: As in a village, they will be different and unique and can be identifiable to their “owners.” “Neighborhood parks” will add to the variety, as will landscape.
- A Bridge: The residential village is separated by a riparian area spanned by a bridge that connects the neighborhoods to the academic campus, which becomes the student’s downtown, where they will spend their learning day. The bridge spans the major storm water retention on site and is a native area that changes with the seasons and recognizes the dry and wet aspects of a bio-system.
- Downtown: The place where fun activities occur. Student union, library, fitness, and recreation are intertwined with studios, labs, and collaborative learning commons. The downtown imagery is completed by a central square. This is a rich and exciting environment that will change with the climate, providing opportunities for natural ventilation and great outdoor space where learning activities can occur.
In part three of our Informed School Design post, learn 
about the interior design techniques we used to help engage the students at The Academy.
To learn more about the Orangewood Children’s Foundation, visit OrangewoodFoundation.org.
Wendy Rogers is a Design Principal at California-based LPA Inc. Her specialty is the integration of design and curriculum within educational spaces, for K-12 schools. Her work has been recognized by the American Institute of Architects, the Coalition for Adequate School Housing, the Pacific Coast Builders Conference, the Society of American Registered Architects, the California Parks and Recreation Society, and the Green California Schools Summit, to name a few. She’s a LEED accredited professional, active member of the U.S. Green Building Council Green Schools Committee, and the co-author of “Green School Primer: Lessons in Sustainability.”
By LPA Bloggers Suzanne Schechtman and Jill Kramer
It’s written on our business cards, inscribed on the front doors of our offices, and, most importantly, ingrained in the thought process that goes into every project we deliver: our goal at LPA is to create sustainable places and spaces that truly enrich the lives of those who use them.
Without a doubt, it’s an ambitious mission that challenges us to consider and constantly reassess different ways to refine our process and ultimately enrich lives through design. But when we strip this idea down to its core, it’s not about design; it’s about people. As a result, one of the ways we strive to achieve our goal is by endeavoring to better understand who it is that we're designing for, because you can’t improve lives without knowing more about them.
We're doing this more and more through research, as early in the process as possible. We’re looking at different ways to build upon resources we have here at LPA and explore areas we’re less familiar with, to educate our project teams and ultimately create more supportive, thoughtful, and informed design solutions. (In the latter sections of this three-part blog post, we’ll discuss a current design project in which we applied what we’ve uncovered through research.)
Learning is becoming more active, and students are taking charge of their education as teachers move to the sidelines—facilitators of the learning experience. Schools are considering how to better support the differentiated learning preferences of their students. 
Ultimately, it’s about providing opportunity and choice in the learning environment. It’s about figuring out how a classroom environment can better support learning activities. We’re seeing more progressive classroom models that rethink the entire learning experience, increasing connections between students for a more vibrant, engaging experience. There are furniture manufacturers we’re interacting with who have invested time and energy into better understanding the dynamics of the classroom so that they can play a role in defining how furniture can better support these more project-based and interactive types of learning.
Furniture solutions can have a profound impact on how instructors teach and students learn. Providing furniture that is mobile provides a more interactive and flexible learning environment, enabling quick transitions between activities; mobile, swivel seating also encourages increased interaction and group discussions. 
Other furniture solutions include tables with “plug and play” power, which provides flexibility that allows the space to serve as either a technologically-rich, one-to-one computing environment, or as a general classroom. Additional items to incorporate in informed classroom design include: mobile storage, mobile whiteboards, and technology boards along the walls, to provide users not only visual access but physical access.
Intrigued by what you’ve read so far? Be sure to catch part two of our Informed Classroom Design series, for a real world example of the themes introduced above.
Suzanne Schechtman is an Educational Planner at California-based LPA Inc. She’s involved in all phases of LPA’s renowned master planning process, from needs assessment and visioning to conceptual master planning and community outreach. Her social science background enables her to bring a special focus to educational facilities and how they impact the students, teachers, staff, and other individuals who use them. Suzanne received her psychology degree from Washington University in St. Louis, and her M.S. in Applied Research, Human-Environment Relations from Cornell University.
Jill Kramer, IIDA, LEED AP ID+C, has more than 14 years of experience in the contract furniture industry specifying more than $40 million. Her experience includes working for and with furniture dealerships, design firms and end users in furniture specification, procurement, ergonomics, needs assessment and full project management. She oversees Furniture Management Services at California-based LPA Inc., where she is also a Project Manager.
Today’s post delves into Principle #9, from LPA’s 10 Principles of Absolute Design. For the past several months, we’ve been going into greater detail about these tenets, which were created by design teams in-house, to help us think more globally about sustainability and our approach to integrated sustainable design. Quantifiable, verifiable design success is one of the many things that set us apart from others in our field. May you enjoy this post, and may it give you a different picture of our profession—and help you think more strategically, about the resources your own buildings are consuming (whether it’s your home, condo, school classroom, civic building, or corporate headquarters).
LPA’s 10 Principles of Absolute Design
- Inter + Act
- Do Less
- Challenge Convention
- Zoom Out
- Zoom In
- Build Smart
- Enrich Lives
- Create Value
- Prove It
- Step Up
LPA Sustainable Design Principle #9: Prove It. Provide the hard numbers that all stakeholders need about the true costs and benefits of green buildings. People may balk at the idea of greening their building because they believe the Three Green Building Myths.
- Green buildings cost too much.
- Green building and technology systems are too sophisticated for building maintenance staff.
- Green building materials aren’t durable.
The truth is quite different. Perception is not reality. As discussed often on this blog, new green buildings cost the same as—and in most cases less than—comparable conventional buildings. We take away the subjective elements and make them more quantifiable, thereby having the data is takes to “sell” sustainability to a much broader audience.
“Proving it” is important, because as a company that operates with high ethics, and we want to do what we say we’re going to do. If we tell a client that they ought to trust us with their sustainable building design because it’s going to save energy, water, time, and future operating costs, we better be able to “prove” that we’ve done that, through demonstration and quantifiable data.
And again, it’s important to prove that green buildings do not—and should not—cost more. This data is something the U.S. Green Building Council is starting to gather and make a part of their requirements. The teams here at LPA gather this information through a variety of methods, post occupancy surveys being one of them. We seek to have an open dialogue with our clients, who our now in their buildings. We want to know how their spaces are performing and how they’re using them. Is the programming working the way they thought? Are they using the building in different ways than they originally thought they would? What do the employees or faculty think about the space? What have the students said? We enjoy hearing feedback from our clients, and it’s an important part of the process, as we strive to continually improve the way we design buildings—through architecture, sustainability, planning, interior design, landscape architecture, engineering, and graphics.
Measuring can be as simple as looking at your meter and energy bill, and comparing that energy use from month to month, or year by year. More sophisticated areas to measure include the HVAC system, the kilowatt hours your photovoltaic panels put out, the electricity being used by your lighting, and more. We did an energy audit for a school district recently, and found that one month, their energy use went up 20 percent—and had stayed that high, ever since. As we continued our research, we found that the day lighting controls weren’t working; so, by being aware of these kinds of things, and understanding your typical energy use, you can spot the indicators when something’s gone wrong.
It all goes back to that old saying: you cannot manage what you cannot measure, and that’s why we love to measure these kinds of things for our clients, at LPA.
Dan Heinfeld, FAIA, LEED AP and President of LPA Inc. For more than 30 years, he has led the design direction of the firm. Since 1985, LPA has been recognized with more than 150 AIA national, state and components awards that promote the importance of sustainability in the process of informed design. LPA provides services in architecture, sustainability, planning, interior design, landscape architecture, engineering, and graphics.
By Guest Blogger Julie Zhang, Professional Studio Intern
I can’t believe it’s already week nine out of my 10-week architectural internship. The days pass like a bullet train, with all of the excitement and bewilderment that come along with it. I find myself eager to get to work in the morning, eager to finish the project that I’m working on, and eager to see it grow. I anticipate the lessons that await me and the things I’ll learn; I am often surprised. I expected to improve on skills in modeling, technical drawing, and blueprint reading. What I didn’t expect, was the exposure to all sectors of the building design process.
One of the first assignments handed to me was to create a fire safety egress plan, along with calculations. Now, I’ll never forget how they work. Soon after, I was taken to a site for a punch walk. Now, I understand how details come together in real life and what it takes to build something one brick at a time. Next, I helped the K-12 school interior designers work on material boards and design a set of wall graphics.
Now I see how it’s not about placing furniture and matching colors, it’s about enhancing the architecture and guiding people’s experiences.
I don’t know how I got the chance to go fishing in all of these different lakes, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. My project manager told me that I get the most out of my time here because I ask the right questions. At the same time, the more I discover, the more I realize how much I still need to learn.
It’s not necessarily the technical skills learned, but the everyday experiences that have made this journey memorable. My internship here has taught me about what it means to be a part of LPA. The company is full of smart, hardworking people—and what the firm does especially well is tap into each person’s arsenal of specialty skills. These talents, quirks, and passions are cultured in this supportive, collaborative environment in ways that help each individual, and help the company too.
Everything from the open cubicle plan to the integrated design principles used on each project, make it easy for individuals to excel. Maybe, working with schools brings out a certain passion and dedication. The helpful and approachable nature of my co-workers is contagious. I grew to be a better communicator as well. The ample resources and easy navigation of LPA’s intranet gave me guidance on Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Photovoltaic (PV) panel calculations, budgeting, and tricks for Revit. With all of this sharing of information, the company really works as one.
LPA is forward-thinking, innovative, and thirsty for knowledge. The amount of information I’ve gained amplifies with each day that I spend here. The exposure I’ve been given with new technology and building systems alone is enough to write a separate post. From here, I see that I have become a better designer. I see buildings as entities at work; each element supports the others in a matrix of design and functionality. Even before pen is put to trace paper, designs are thought wholly—with structure and mechanical systems, sustainability, landscape architecture, and interiors, all in one. At LPA, the beauty is truly in the details.
For more information about the LPA-Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Professional Studio Program, e-mail dgilmore[at]lpainc[dot]com. Image caption: LPA-Cal Poly Professional Studio Interns Jake Belinski, Michelle Loeb, and Julie Zhang.
For those not in the K-12 school design world, you may have missed one of the year’s most informative school housing conferences. Last week, hundreds of districts met together in Sacramento, CA, to discuss the condition of California’s budget, the future of funding for schools, and anything and everything about 21st Century Learning Environments. Hosted by the Coalition for Adequate School Housing (C.A.S.H.), the 2012 conference was educational and insightful.
For colleague Steve Newsom, a fellow K-12 school architect and featured speaker in: Teaming Up! Tapping into the Power of Partnering for School Energy Projects, a memorable moment was introducing the new State Architect, Chester “Chet” Widom, to the C.A.S.H. Architects Committee—where he outlined his plan for improvements to the Division of the State Architect (DSA), in California.
Steve also enjoyed his clinic (mentioned above), where he got to spend time with various districts and help them understand the ways they could immediately save money—and potentially generate their own energy—through increased energy savings to their general fund.
“Many districts have preconceived notions about Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), but after seeing some of our projects, with carefully crafted RFPs and contracts, many skeptics indicated their desire to reconsider PPAs,” said Newsom.
For me, it was moving to see San Marcos High School take home a C.A.S.H. award for the design of their new, three-story school. Plans for the new campus double classroom space by 50 percent. Organized by curriculum, with the feel of a live-work setup, students will find amenities like: the library reading center, student store, and career center, on the ground floor. Academic spaces are housed on the floors above.
One of the most unique things in store for the new campus is the 21st-century Student Union that celebrates how kids learn today. Equipped with flexible seating for 150, a large projection system, and views to the quad amphitheater, the Student Union will be the school’s new gateway—and heart of the campus, as well.
Campus wide WiFi makes it possible for every student to connect and work via the internet, fulfilling the district’s goal for one-to-one computing capabilities.
The infrastructure that supports this initiative also supports other 21st-century learning models, which emphasize mobility, flexibility, and collaboration. Collaboration-focused features planned include classroom clusters, common spaces, and furniture for students and faculty that facilitate group work.
Flexibility was intentionally designed into the new San Marcos High School. They can operate as a subject-based, comprehensive high school—or in the future, small learning communities or a “School within a School.” As education evolves, the high school can too and in my eyes, that’s something to celebrate.
Wendy Rogers is a Design Principal at California-based LPA Inc. Her specialty is the integration of design and curriculum within educational spaces, for K-12 schools. Her work has been recognized by the American Institute of Architects, the Coalition for Adequate School Housing, the Pacific Coast Builders Conference, the Society of American Registered Architects, the California Parks and Recreation Society, and the Green California Schools Summit, to name a few. She’s a LEED accredited professional, active member of the U.S. Green Building Council Green Schools Committee, and the co-author of “Green School Primer: Lessons in Sustainability.”