2014 AIA Los Angeles (AIA/Next LA) Merit Award
“This is an incredibly rational project for the clarity and use of symmetry.
The use of materiality, shade and shadow are reminiscent of
the Salk Institute. This project creates a platform or a framework for
students to layer on to and transform it. The systematic approach
of how the classrooms are organized and spaced in between are
given an elevated sense of importance” ~Jury Comments

The proposal is based on two main design premises: an understanding of the program
as a reflection on the nature of teaching and learning, and an acknowledgment of the place as a didactic reflection on how architecture can relate the human habitat, its activities and the physical and cultural environment where it is inserted.

The challenge of designing an educational building that comprises three different levels
of education is addressed by proposing a group of functionally different buildings with
a formal and material unity. The three main programmatic areas are physically separated
by courtyards and they take advantage of the topography in order to diminish the visual
impact of the building by having the tallest building in the lowest part of the site and
merge into the landscape letting the olive tree slopes interlock with the buildings. The
use of open courtyards reinforce the interior activities. The presence of wooden columns
lined verandas as buffer zones between the exterior and the interior establish a
link with ancient Minoan architecture, and stress the idea that teaching and learning
happen everywhere and anytime, vertically but also horizontally, between mates.
The dependence on mechanical systems is greatly reduced by the precise early
architectural decisions that regulate the effects of the environment on the comfort
and its energy demands. Rather than having sustainable add-ons, the complex benefits
from a holistic approach to the topographic, cultural and bioclimatic conditions of its place.