Ideas & Impacts

Santa Monica High School Discovery Building honored for Ingenious Structural Design

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Santa Monica High School Discovery Building honored for Ingenious Structural Design

Kaoru Orime on October 20, 2025

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

 

UC Riverside School of Business received Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) Western Pacific Region Award of Distinction

Kaoru Orime on October 20, 2025

UC Riverside’s new School of Business brings together programs and resources establishing a strong identity and dedicated home for business school students. The 63,400-square-foot building, completed in fall of 2024, provides an engaging HUB that reflects the University’s mission of equity, innovation, and excellence while advancing student well-being and success.

The design is organized around a parti of “open arms,” a distinctive form that embraces the campus and symbolizes inclusivity, outreach, and connection. Inside, the program includes state-of-the-art classrooms, collaborative multi-use spaces, faculty offices, and student resources. Lounges and outdoor terraces extend learning and community into daily life, giving its students a true sense of belonging.

Riverside’s hot, arid climate and the site’s distinctive topography became opportunities for design innovation. The building is embedded into the hillside, transforming challenging grades into new accessible pathways and dynamic outdoor spaces. Its massing and shading strategies reduce heat gain and maximize natural daylight while terraces provide comfortable year-round gathering areas. Native landscaping and stormwater biofiltration conserve water and restore habitat. An iconic 216-kilowatt rooftop solar array offsets energy use and stands as a visible symbol of UC Riverside’s commitment to sustainability. Together, these strategies achieved LEED Platinum certification and a 73% reduction in energy use.

Delivered in just 25 months, the project has become a campus destination—a HUB of collaboration, a breeding ground for ideas, and a place for students to deepen connections and gain expertise from faculty and local and global business leaders.

Landscape Plan Integrates Outdoor Learning and Public Art to Reinvigorate the CMC Campus

Kaoru Orime on May 9, 2025

Mario Violich, FAIA, ASLA and Clover Linné, AIA of Moore Ruble Yudell have authored a landscape campus plan with Claremont McKenna College to incorporate outdoor learning spaces and curate the campus with new art installations.

Surrounded by CMC residence halls, the 250 foot long sinuous work is formed from over 1500 bricks of Venetian glass. The name Qwalala comes from a term the Pomo tribe uses to refer to the meandering path of the Gualala River on the northern coast of California. The sculpture enriches the collection of public art installed on the CMC campus in recent years by contemporary artists.

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