The Santa Monica High School Discovery Building won the Structural Engineering Excellence Award from the Structural Engineers Association of Southern California.
Today’s approach to K-12 innovation is all about flexibility and change. School design is driven by pedagogy, which is itself profoundly affected by the fluid development of information and classroom technologies. Learning, subject to this type of wide-ranging evolution, calls for the architecture itself to be less about a building and more about an operable, adaptable platform.
The Discovery Building is designed as a ‘loft’ building with a flexible, open column grid, raised floor for air supply, power and data and non-load bearing walls which can be reconfigured over time. The creative prefab kit-of-parts hybrid structural system optimized the building’s flexibility for an evolving curriculum and the diverse needs of all students.
Project Team
Executive Architect: HED
Structural Engineer of Record: Saiful Bouquet Structural Engineers
