Gold Award

CW Architects, Los Angeles, Calif.
Project location: Culver City, Calif.
Sq. ft. before: 47,000
Sq. ft. after: 47,000
Project cost: $8.4 million

The New Park Century School is a 47,000-sq.-ft. elementary school for children with learning disabilities located in a converted concrete tilt-up warehouse building in Culver City, Calif. The existing building, built in 1965, served warehousing and film production purposes for 40 years. It was purchased by the school and remodeled to house classrooms, special tutoring rooms, library, central atrium, community outreach center and a regulation sized gymnasium. Cost of construction was $8.4 million.

Since there was limited outdoor space available, it was important to create an outdoor environment indoors. CW Architects of Los Angeles, the designing firm, also wanted to eliminate the industrial feel of the building and create a healthier environment for the students. The solution was to provide an enormous amount of natural light in the central core and in the classrooms. A “main street” and central atrium with a skylight was created at the core of the building. A 30-ft. hole was cut in the roof, and the central stairwell is constantly bathed in sunlight. Natural stone paving further articulates the outdoor feel.

The classrooms were a little more challenging. The existing tilt-up walls were planned for more horizontal openings. The initial structural design and horizontal openings required each panel to be resupported with a new steel frame, but further investigation revealed that the walls would support themselves if the opening widths were limited to 4 ft. This saved an enormous amount of time and money, the architect says.

The new glass curtain wall on the front of the building includes sculptural glass trees suspended on the front of the building, intended to convey the mission of the school as a tree of learning. Several designs were proposed, including a cable system, which was abandoned. Finally, the curtain wall supplier, architect and structural engineer devised a separate structural system which floats in front of the curtain wall but is virtually invisible. The sculptural trees are supported but do not compromise the weatherproof capabilities of the glass wall.

The main accomplishment of this building is that it provides a very “cool” building for children who are often stigmatized into feeling less than normal or out of place in the community. Instead of being an institutional building, the new space gives them an identity of their own, the architect says.

“I think the design and outcome accomplished its goal of creating a bright, cheerful, well-planned space for these children,” says one of the judges.

Specified Products
Paving and wall veneer: Rox Pro Placer Gold
Curtain wall: Vista Wall
Laminated glass: Pulp Studios
Skylights: Metcoe
Sports floor: Robbins
Air conditioning: Carrier

Silver
Team Entry: Green Ridge Builders, LLC, Doylestown, Ohio; Speirs Architectural Design, Wooster, Ohio; and Schmidt Copeland Parker Stevens, Cleveland, Ohio

Bronze
John H. Allen, Inc., Jackson, Tenn.

Honorable mention
The Design Studio, Inc., Sioux Falls, S.D.