Together with our design-build partners, Kemp Bros. Construction, and the Los Angeles Unified School District, our design revitalized and updated a nearly 100-year old elementary campus in South Los Angeles. At the planning level, the design promotes an organizing concept of a connected fabric for learning and social engagement – linking students to each other, to their school community, to the environment and the neighborhood at large.
The plan is a rich network of linked outdoor spaces dedicated to people-to people interaction, discovery, investigation, and quiet contemplation. At the heart of the school is Tiger Court, the most celebrated of social spaces on campus. This shaded flexible plaza anchored by the neighborhood facing program elements of administration, multi-purpose room, and the library creates a comfortably scaled community “living room” to celebrate life at school, the students, and their achievements.
A series of niched display walls, demonstration gardens and outdoor reading rooms provide interactive learning tools thematically oriented around Science, Art and Discovery, extending student learning outdoors.