Clad in a vivid yellow aluminum facade that perfectly complements L.A.'s typically sunny blue skies, Animo South Los Angeles High School's newest building signals a fresh start. After a massive fire in 2014 destroyed half of the campus, which has been around since the 1950s, locally based architecture firm Brooks + Scarpa took on the task of designing a new building for the school.
The public charter high school is known for its collaborative curriculum and strong connections to the surrounding community in South Central L.A. Located in a historically troubled area that was also a central spot in the 1964 Watts and 1992 Rodney King Riots, the new building has a visually open but secure design for the school's 630 students and faculty, the architects describe.
Brooks + Scarpa wanted to create a flexible teaching environment that supports parental involvement and puts student life at the center of the school. Completed this year on an extremely limited budget and tight schedule, the 18,000 square-foot building comprises 11 airy, light-filled classrooms, two science labs, a faculty lounge, new administrative and counseling offices, and a public courtyard for student gatherings and activities. And instead of the usual prison-like property line security fence, the building is surrounded by 20-foot-tall, perforated bullet-resistant metal walls that integrate with the overall design.
“The perforated anodized aluminum façade panels of the building creates an ever- changing screen that sparkles in the sun and glows at night, while simultaneously providing shade to cool the building, reducing noise, enhancing privacy, and still allowing for views, great natural light, and ventilation,” says Brooks and Scarpa. “The walls filter direct sunlight that lends unexpected visual depth while creating a sense of security for the occupants. Enhancing the structure’s geometric texture, the irregular array of openings variably extrudes from the building’s surface.”
Find more project photos and drawings in the gallery below.
How ghastly can you get? This in a region that developed Spanish Colonial architecture to a very rich degree. And what do they have against landscape architects? Hopeless.
I think it’s fantastic. this is what architecture needs more of — perforated metal with color! It’s not overdone if you see the interior spaces ... or the overall relation to the neighborhood (speculating here)
I see arch photos as providing scale and basics, like a document of pure construction — at this point I’m skeptical of any social or political message being sent by a photographer for PR propaganda — also renderings, which can have fake inclusion. What really happens in buildings is something reporters, users and people have to figure out later —if they ever do.
I don't think there's enough information in the post. Looking at aerial images and street views it's loud, but not that bad. The screening makes sense given that the entry to the other building on the campus has what appears to be a perforated masonry screen at the main entrance (see below).
More importantly, the new building is actually a school and the metal allows light in to the classrooms (the older building is most certainly not a school, but a renovated retail shoe box).
The color is great and the interiors look nice. But as a graduate of southern california schools.... I am so dismayed to see once again ZERO SHADE OR SHELTER considerations in the outdoor spaces.
Everyone who builds schools in southern california apparently believes "oh the weather is perfect here, all these kids can just eat lunch outside every day" well guess what time lunch is?! THE HOTTEST TIME OF THE DAY, MORONS. Do you like to go leave your office and sit on baking hot bare concrete ground while the blinding sun beats your skull down into your stomach and melts your lunch, which you can hardly see in the sun's glare, only to be herded back inside to a freezing a/c classroom to take a test? I lived with intense headaches most days of my school career and wanted to stab the architects who designed my school environments. Also, IT DOES SOMETIMES RAIN, and then you all have to huddle together in some poor first-year teacher's classroom, steaming and shouting over the hubbub. UGH. PLANT SOME FUCKING TREES for goodness sakes. At a minimum!
some of this gets back to an earlier point. We really don’t know how it is received by the intended users. One person, and we’re not clear on how they relate to the project.
This is not to dismiss the environmental comments, but -
1- this addition will almost certainly be better received than the other existing building on the campus
2- if it works for the student, it succeeds (again no shade about the shade comments).
We really don’t have enough referential information to judge.
And 3- what impact did the nature of the client have on the budget and design outcomes? What if the client really is that cheap? We keep throwing money at a project like it wasn’t an issue.
All 21 Comments
I hope you like yellow!
Simultaneously cheerful and prison-like .
A school, with collaborative curriculum, in a historical poor community, populated with one white person, zero black children, and virtually no photos of human existence. Yep. Trump's America.
I think that critique is off base.
Architects have been producing images like that for ages. It's a reflection of the practice and its narrow lens, not a given administration at the time.
Marc, I'm placing my comments within that lens, that perhaps given our present circumstances, the framework for representation needs to be reflective of the stated vision and program. The words don't match the pictures.
Marc, I'm placing my comments within that lens, that perhaps given our present circumstances, the framework for representation needs to be reflective of the stated vision and program. The words don't match the pictures.
agreed.
How ghastly can you get? This in a region that developed Spanish Colonial architecture to a very rich degree. And what do they have against landscape architects? Hopeless.
Probably the same thing as so many other Architecture firms- budget.
But it is the ASLA.
Is this really a plea to bring back Spanish colonial architecture? At that scale? Lets not mkay... nobody wants to rebuild the Alamo.
Chigurh, Volunteer is pointing out that this region has a rich inheritance of local architectural language that has been effectively adapted to suit this climate (and despite your comment, works wonderfully at a variety of scales). No one is asking to rebuild the Alamo, just noting out how out of touch our profession can be. When we prioritize the pursuit of novelty and willfully ignore the past out of the naive fear of being unoriginal this is the result and our cold, bland future. Frankly, I'd prefer the Alamo over this *queue defensive battle cries*
I think it’s fantastic. this is what architecture needs more of — perforated metal with color! It’s not overdone if you see the interior spaces ... or the overall relation to the neighborhood (speculating here)
I see arch photos as providing scale and basics, like a document of pure construction — at this point I’m skeptical of any social or political message being sent by a photographer for PR propaganda — also renderings, which can have fake inclusion. What really happens in buildings is something reporters, users and people have to figure out later —if they ever do.
I don't think there's enough information in the post. Looking at aerial images and street views it's loud, but not that bad. The screening makes sense given that the entry to the other building on the campus has what appears to be a perforated masonry screen at the main entrance (see below).
More importantly, the new building is actually a school and the metal allows light in to the classrooms (the older building is most certainly not a school, but a renovated retail shoe box).
This view reminds me of a similar viewpoint of ZHA’s Evelyn Grace Academy, although in the image I remember it included a load of (White) police harassing/arresting a load of (Black) youth in the foreground. That project won the Stirling prize? It looks like a prison too externally, but it is more monochrome.
But this street view isn’t the Brooks + Scarpa addition, this is one of the original buildings on the campus. The addition would be on the right, where the construction fence is.
It’s the prison aspect, how did an inner city School in Lewisham win the sterling prize, complete with a prison as industry aesthetic? It includes an internal recreation ground for fuck sake, who approved, and more importantly who lauded it?
These concerns are very much transferable to inner city LA...
Shiny things win awards. It given to the older building above, which is is still a functioning part of the school, I’d take the Brooks + Scarpa addition.
Also remember this is an addition/rebuild for a charter school campus. The metrics may vary.
What does this architecture say to the students?
Louis Barragan did it first. And better.
I like its simplicity in form, diagram, detailing, and color. Thank you donald judd.
The color is great and the interiors look nice. But as a graduate of southern california schools.... I am so dismayed to see once again ZERO SHADE OR SHELTER considerations in the outdoor spaces.
Everyone who builds schools in southern california apparently believes "oh the weather is perfect here, all these kids can just eat lunch outside every day" well guess what time lunch is?! THE HOTTEST TIME OF THE DAY, MORONS. Do you like to go leave your office and sit on baking hot bare concrete ground while the blinding sun beats your skull down into your stomach and melts your lunch, which you can hardly see in the sun's glare, only to be herded back inside to a freezing a/c classroom to take a test? I lived with intense headaches most days of my school career and wanted to stab the architects who designed my school environments. Also, IT DOES SOMETIMES RAIN, and then you all have to huddle together in some poor first-year teacher's classroom, steaming and shouting over the hubbub. UGH. PLANT SOME FUCKING TREES for goodness sakes. At a minimum!
You can spot some plantings in the photos, so it will look much different in 3 years when they grow in a little. Don’t see any trees, but maybe there are elsewhere— would be nice to see more trees around the perimeter if there is any space
Prisons aren't typically landscaped.
Well, as a start you could adapt the Spanish Colonial loggia to provide some shade and to serve as hallways - but that would make too much sense. Much too pleasant an area for the teachers and students.
interesting how the floor plan shows more plantings (trees? or bushes) which will change the feel of the school somewhat in a couple of years. The plantings surround the perimeter and enter the courtyard space too
The only trees, except for one line little one the giant empty concrete expanse encircled by the building mass, are at the perimeter (likely reqd by LA landscape ordinance) outside the enclosed campus and therefore wholly inaccessible to students. These will do nothing to provide student comfort and neither will the lone little tree shoved to one end of the courtyard.
I don't think you guys understand what going to school in so cal is like. The outdoor spaces are intentionally used for lunch/break time space as the cafeterias--if there even are any--are literally not designed to provide sit down eating space for all the kids. There are usually no hallyways either, just classroom pods and you walk around outside to get between classes. A significant portion of your day is spent outside with no shelter. It is not remotely pleasant. Look at that awful courtyard picture. Would you want to spend hours of your life there, in sweltering sun? Note: the sun angles in the picture shown indicate the picture was taken in the late afternoon, after everyone has gone home. Mostly this courtyard will have zero shade for the time the students are forced to occupy it.
What a depressing concrete prison yard.
calling a school a prison [because brown people go there] is [problematic]? From what I can see this is extra classroom space for an existing high school, done in a similar style to what is there. This isn’t an elementary school playground—nobody eats lunch outside. The courtyard is flexible enough that the school can do whatever they want with it.
The designers did their job—they made an authentic thing, unique but also of its place—an architectural Lemonade. Whether it succeeds or fails is an open question.
This feels like a jail. I'd be depressed everyday I had to attend this school, brown, green or blue people. This is inhumane.
So you've visited it?
Why would I visit it? Just look at the photos. It's not hard to imagine how someone else might feel with a little empathy and imagination. You should try is some time.
What is tragic is that if this school is for Latino immigrants there is a rich traditional Spanish architectural heritage for the architects to draw on. If they wanted to go modern the architecture of Barragan and Legorreta, among many others, interpret that traditional heritage in a modern way. This looks like a warehouse in a third-rate industrial park.
"interpret that traditional heritage in a modern way" .. you mean like what they did?
How is this interpreting traditional heritage? I just don't see it.
This certainly isn't. It is 'original' without any context whosoever.
Originality means nothing if it's a failure. We place way too much emphasis on originality and too little emphasis on quality.
+++ Thayer-D
+++++ Originality means nothing if it's a failure.
I need an equation.
IKEA yellow.
nice.
I have no issue with the style they chose, but imagine how hot it would get in those tight metal corridors (3rd picture from the bottom), all that LA heat soaking into the concrete and metal. Can kids even lean against the wall without burning themselves?
some of this gets back to an earlier point. We really don’t know how it is received by the intended users. One person, and we’re not clear on how they relate to the project.
This is not to dismiss the environmental comments, but -
1- this addition will almost certainly be better received than the other existing building on the campus
2- if it works for the student, it succeeds (again no shade about the shade comments).
We really don’t have enough referential information to judge.
And 3- what impact did the nature of the client have on the budget and design outcomes? What if the client really is that cheap? We keep throwing money at a project like it wasn’t an issue.
Agree.
Some sail shades, misters, and potted plants, and furniture, and you'd have something nice...
what is the company name of the aluminium panels????
Another important architectural tradition in this region is invention of new forms-- especially modern ones-- using whatever's handy to build them, and finished with a simple technique (paint, for example) to efficiently achieve a visual impact. This is at least as common a tradition here as Mission Revival and its many offshoots. Are the built results over the last century always happy or beautiful? Hardly. But it's no less part of the culture of architecture and development here.
By the way, the tradition of Mission architecture and influence-- which is often beautiful-- has other associations. It was imposed by European colonials on an indigenous culture by force. Some might question its deployment at a school populated by kids of color in a low-income neighborhood.
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