
Community-Based Education Campus Honors Local History
Project Location
San Diego, CA
Client
San Diego Unified School District
Area
99,000 SF
Program
TK – 8, child development center

Design
This campus is a walkable neighborhood learning center, engaging parents and inspiring students. Student-centered, Montessori learning environments have been designed to support hands-on learning, teamwork, critical-thinking, and problem-solving skills.
Integrated Learning Experiences
The TK - 8 campus is proud to be a public Montessori school by putting students at the center of learning. Montessori focuses on the whole student including social, emotional, intellectual, and physical development. Students learn and explore at their own pace in order to become critical thinkers. Additionally, the TK-8 campus will offer classes that integrate with the career pathways at the future high school on the same site. The learning commons is adjacent to two STEM spaces, resulting in a vibrant student environment where students create, research, think, and present to their peers. Classroom villages are designed around collaboration spaces to promote flexible learning. Throughout the entire campus are maker spaces and design labs with 3D printers, laser cutters, and other equipment to prototype and create manufactured work.

The TK-8 educational environments have been designed to support hands-on learning, teamwork, communication proficiency, critical-thinking, and problem-solving skills.

The traditional library is re-envisioned as a collaborative learning commons, where students can gather, socialize, and showcase their work.
Neighborhood Learning
A childhood development center provides the Logan Heights community with care and enrichment programs for infants through 2 years, in support of research that shows children learn from infancy. In addition to supporting children and parents, this space serves various programs and activities that will be offered to the community through the school district. The community room assists families through an educational enrichment program focusing on nutrition education, health, and social services.

An art master plan was developed to engage the local arts community and integrate murals, signage, and ornamental metal works into the design.

Eight large-scale exterior building panels abstractly represent one of the core concepts of the school: community, compassion, creativity, growth, leadership, collaborate, inspire, and innovate.
High-Performance Design
The project is Collaborative for High Performance Schools-designed, a program aimed to reduce energy consumption in California’s K-12 educational facilities. The district also is participating in Savings by Design offered by SDG&E, which offers financial incentives based on project performance for new construction and renovation projects. High performance attributes for the facilities include natural ventilation, materials that promote energy and water efficiency, maximize the use of natural lighting, improve indoor air quality, utilize recycled materials, and create acoustical conditions that are conducive to optimal learning environments. The project is targeting net zero energy use with over 55,000 SF of photovoltaic panels, potentially even generating more energy than it consumes.

Sustainability was a key factor in design decisions regarding the creation of learning environments, accommodating operational effectiveness, and energy efficiencies.

Sustainable design elements include natural ventilation, materials that promote energy and water efficiency and maximize the use of natural lighting.