The original Spiritridge Elementary School was constructed in 1969. The low-slung, single-story building, with its low-sloped roofs and deep overhangs, nestle nicely into the heavily wooded site. As the surrounding neighborhood grew and matured around it, Spiritridge became intertwined with the personality of the local community. The challenge facing the replacement project was to create a building that served a contemporary curriculum and was 50% larger without losing the original school’s character—the “Spirit of Spiritridge.”

The tight site constraints (parking, playfields, child center, and school on a nine-acre site) meant creating a 64,000 SF building would require a two-story solution. The building is organized around a central entry lobby which houses administration and the library. The linear, two-story, classroom wing is broken down into smaller clusters of classrooms which are articulated as individual masses and joined together by smaller “connector” blocks that house the building services (toilet rooms, stairs, and storage).

Deep roof overhangs reflect the shadow lines of the original school building, helping the building appear to sit lower on the site. The exterior materials emulate the language of the surrounding housing. The color palette, both interior and exterior, reflects the greens and browns found in the native plants and trees that were retained on the site, accented with an occasional splash of red, yellow, or purple, which represents the colors of the vegetables in the community gardens that are maintained at the school.

The new Medina Elementary School replaces a ’60s campus-style facility in a park-like setting and accommodates 450 students. An extensive predesign process explored educators’ philosophies of inspiring leadership into a design expression that reflects a student’s journey. This educational journey includes many stations along a path where learning and discovery occur. These stations embody three overriding themes: Mind, Art, and Nature.

The new building is composed of collaborative learning pods pin-wheeling off a central gallery with the spaces representing these ideas. Elements throughout the building lead you on a journey into and through the space. Outdoor learning gardens continue the learning environment into the landscape and fuse the site with the building.

Dramatic improvements in traffic safety were accomplished in the site design between parents, busses, and staff providing fundamental needs so that attention could be focused on student development.

The Kennydale Elementary School design is a synthesis of program requirements, stakeholder input, and a response to the unique characteristics of its site and surrounding neighborhood. The new school replaced an existing facility on a relatively small 6.7-acre site. The site is bordered by I-405 on the west and a retained new playfield that occupied the northern portion of the site. In addition, the District was looking for increased parking for 100 cars and loading for eight buses. Efficiency in the new site layout was imperative to its success.

The placement of the administration area as a central hub provides visual supervision of both parking areas and the main lobby and entry spaces in the building. The organization allows for maximum separation of the classrooms from the noise of I-405 with the noisier spaces of the gym and commons placed as a sound “buffer”.

The classroom wing has been articulated to provide appropriate scale to a long building façade. The design also creates a rhythm by alternately “sliding” classroom blocks on the exterior while providing small-group activity “pull-out” areas and generous daylight on the interior.