Project Data:

Completion Date:     5/13/2022

Square Footage:      86000

Building Use:           HIGH SCHOOL STEM EDUCATION BUILDING

Design Architect:      Westgroup Designs, Inc

Project Description:

Los Alamitos High School is the sole high school in Los Alamitos Unified School District, with an average enrollment of 3200 students and a long-standing legacy of achievement as a National Blue-Ribbon School of Excellence, a California Distinguished School and California Gold Ribbon School. The high performance of both teachers and students, however, is supported by predominantly 1-story, windowless, 50-year-old classrooms, and 30 aging portable classroom buildings.

The project program was formed as a collaborative effort with Los Alamitos Unified School District, educational stakeholders, business partners, community members, and local community colleges. The design acknowledges the district's desire to produce a long-term solution for needed high-performance facilities, as well as replace aging portable classrooms with permanent buildings that will endure the test of time.

As part of the District's 2018 facilities improvement bond measure, the District demolished the existing Administration and Media Center buildings to pave the way for a new STEM classroom building that will provide students and staff modern facilities that will support the campus for the next 50 years. Located at the front of the campus, the new 3-story, 86,000 GSF building will replace all existing portable classrooms with permanent facilities, accommodate the entire Science department, improve school safety and student drop-off, and create a new landscaped entry promenade into the campus, all while presenting a new civic face to the community that is open, transparent, and features natural daylighting and views to all education spaces.

The ground floor of the new building will house student-services program spaces that include Administration, Health Services, Counseling Services, Campus Discipline & Safety, Campus I.T. Support, Media Center, and Career Center. Specialized CTE instruction spaces with a focus on coding and robotics are also located on the ground floor to directly engage a new STEM courtyard space.

The two upper floors of the building will house 15 general classrooms, 15 science classrooms, and associated student and staff support spaces, including dedicated Professional Learning Community spaces on each floor for enhanced collaboration between teaching disciplines. The north end of the new building features stadium steps that frame the entrance to the new Media Center and provides a dynamic connection between the upper floor education spaces and the heart of the campus.

The architectural expression of the project was inspired by the timeless palette of masonry found in select areas of the campus, to elevate the visual warmth of the campus. The project additionally embraces the school campus accent color of blue by as design element that weaves throughout both interior and exterior. Masonry, steel, glass, and concrete paired with a sensitivity to adjacent outdoor landscaped areas, maximize the impact of the project as an elevated learning environment befitting the high-performing standards of Los Alamitos High School's teachers and students.

AIA Framework for Design Excellence Categories:
Design for Integration – The project met with and integrated the diverse concerns of students, staff, and community to replace existing closed, inward-focused buildings, with a new facility that projects civic warmth and functional transparency, by organizing the program to economically minimize the physical footprint of the project and engaging with the surrounding environment through improved landscaping and social connectivity.