SAN DIEGO - 1998

The Balboa Elementary School Addition and Modernization Project expresses three goals: to unify by plan the several permanent and temporary structures of the school, to provide additional classrooms and to create a meaningful connection of the school to the surrounding community.

An internal street creates a strong axis, expressed with a colonnade of tall deciduous trees. A circular veranda defines a courtyard and clarifies the center of the campus, which symbolically is the center of the neighborhood. At the edge of this circle, the students will place artifacts and handprints in the concrete. The new buildings radiate from the center of this circle, which is denoted by a sculptural shelter for outdoor lunches.

The design of the new classrooms reveals their own making by exposing exposed structural frames on the interior. The roof shapes are a combination of curves and straight lines to constitute a simple, sculptural highlight within a series of otherwise box-like buildings. The existing buildings were modernized with new accessible restrooms, ramps, utilities, cabinets and finishes. A network of walkways, planting beds and playgrounds unify the tapestry of 23 new and existing structures.

SIZE:
52,000 SF

OWNER:
San Diego Unified School District

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER:
Stedman & Dyson

MECHANICAL ENGINEER:
E/C Engineering

ELECTRICAL ENGINEER:
Brown & Schnick Engineering, Inc.

CIVIL ENGINEER:
Pountney & Associates, Inc.