La Entrada Middle School Classroom Building
The client, a middle school located on the peninsula, needed a new classroom building to replace existing portables in order to address their growing student population, and to support their burgeoning project-based learning programs. The existing campus lacks the necessary multipurpose, small group, and break-out spaces to properly implement these new teaching modalities. This 31,000-square-foot, two-story classroom building, which now houses half the student population, was designed to directly support and enhance the “Next Generation” learning for the school.
Designed from the “inside out,” the architectural program was directly shaped by the school curriculum and academic programs. Classrooms were grouped into pairs, and each pair was grouped into a cluster of four. Each classroom pair is outfitted with a shared breakout space and a shared and moveable wall partition, which allows for larger classes, small group work, and team teaching. Four classrooms (two pairs) are clustered on opposing sides of an informal learning pod with each classroom connecting to this space through a large, moveable glass wall. This unique design allows teachers to open up their classrooms and collaborate in many different combinations, offering the faculty a variety of ways to dynamically engage their students within the building.
The classrooms and learning pods interconnect through a central, light-filled atrium that extends longitudinally through the building, which culminates with an amphitheater stair and large gathering space that serves as the main lobby. Outfitted with AV-display and an informal stage zone, this lobby can hold up to 200 students for group presentations, providing the school with a large, flexible multipurpose space for campus use.
The lobby spills out into the academic courtyard through a large glass wall and roll-up door, blurring the lines between outdoor and indoor campus spaces, and allows the building to fully integrate into the surrounding campus. This entrance design provides additional flexibility that allows presentations and gatherings in the lobby to extend into the outdoor courtyard.
The site planning was carefully considered to blend the height, scale, and design of the new building into the existing campus. A sliver of excess field and some reorganization of the hardcourt play areas created the site for the new building, and an existing classroom wing was removed to create an academic courtyard, providing outdoor space that blends the new two-story building into the surrounding one-story campus. The courtyard serves as a new heart of the school, giving the overall campus plan a new identity.
Wrapped in energy efficient materials and a full solar rooftop array, the building exceeds Title 24 standards by 23%, and qualified for Savings By Design. Many passive strategies were implemented through highly efficient mechanical systems, shaded window systems, and passive, natural ventilation through operable clerestory windows in the atrium space.
Combining all of these design features, the school now operates a state-of-the-art middle school classroom building that brings students, faculty, and academic programs together in a rich, dynamic and open environment. The lines blur between classroom, indoor gathering, and the surrounding campus to create vibrant academic spaces that provide a foundation to support the school’s Next-Generation Learning Programs.