Delivered as a Design-Build project, ISMS is a 500-student middle school focused on international studies located in a highly industrial zone of South Gate along the Los Angeles River. The design supplanted an existing cul-de-sac with a tree-lined shared middle school and high school drop-off zone, creating a central parkway between the schools, framed views to the historic trestle bridge crossing the LA River and a unified green bioswale space between both schools and the surrounding neighborhood.
The middle school itself sits on five acres and includes a joint-use gymnasium/performing arts facility, lunch shelter, outdoor basketball, and volleyball courts along with outdoor classrooms and learning environments. The design reflects the middle school age cohort with a building character that is light, free-spirited, and colorful, combining minimal concrete block with glass, crisp smooth-finished painted plaster, metal trim, and a bright orange expression of the building’s steel structure. The floor to ceiling north facing glass on the two-story classroom building is an example of the several sustainable features of the campus and an integral part of the certification of the campus by the Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) Program.
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