2014 Americas Prize
Central Los Angeles Area High School #9 for the Visual and Performing Arts
Wolf D. Prix
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Oct-08
PRIMARY AUTHOR
COOP HIMMELB(L)AU Wolf D. Prix & Partner ZT GmbH
CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR
TMAD Taylor and Gaines (Structural Engineering) ACEA, Inc. (HVAC Consultant) Roshanian and Associates (Electrical) Martin Newson & Associates LLC (Acoustics) JK Design Group (Theater and Light Design) HMC Group (Executive / Local Architects)
CLIENT
LAUSD, Los Angeles Unified School District, CA, USA
PHOTOGRAPHER
Duccio Malagamba Tom Bonner
OBJECTIVE
The brief for the project called for a school campus that provides spaces for general education as well as studio spaces for art education. At the same time, the quest for a flagship project asked for the school to manifest itself appreciably in the urban context and impact the students and the larger public as well. This was interpreted as a possibility to not only offer a closed school, but an open campus that provides spaces for exchange with the public, and to express this openness and the meaning of the school through the architecture. In a first step, a master plan was generated for the 9.8 acre site that suggested a combination of public and private buildings that enclose the school courtyard as a plaza in their center. A tower was introduced as architectural sign for the campus. Public and semi-public programs were added such as a theater, amphitheater, event space, communication and exhibition space. In a second step, a mix of education and art spaces was created within the buildings that carry the openness of the campus into its interior. An effort was made despite the tightness of the program to include non- programmed spaces inside hallways and circulation areas that foster communication and creativity, and allow the students to appropriate them for their own uses. Special attention was placed on the perimeter of the school in order to communicate liveliness and openness through a distinct appearance that reflect positively towards the interior of the school.
CONTEXT
The public High School for the Visual and Performing Arts in downtown Los Angeles is a school for arts as well as general high school education that prepares students for entry into professional, academic studies in an artistic field. Located in downtown Los Angeles adjacent to the cultural corridor of Los Angeles in the context of the Disney Concert Hall, the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Opera, Theater and Los Angeles Cathedral, it is an urban campus, situated at a pivot point between some of the most important public cultural buildings of the city as well as the community it serves. Due to its location and program it has the potential to be a center for education that serves both the students and a wider public audience as a platform of cultural exchange. As the only urban site in the Los Angeles Unified School District’s plan to build 80 schools in 12 years, the high school serves as the flagship project for this overall effort and has the chance to become a symbol for the positive transformation of public education in the city as well as for art. Because of its visibility adjacent one of the major downtown Los Angeles freeways and opposite the main Cathedral the site for the school opens the possibility to use architecture as symbols that communicate the content of the school to the outside, and to provide a new anchor in the urban landscape of downtown LA, dedicated to art.
PERFORMANCE
The school is organized as a campus, with seven individual buildings that create a sequence of plazas and internal school courtyards. The main school entrance connects directly to the school courtyard via a grand stair and serves as day to day entrance for students, visitors and staff, while a second, public entrance is used for special events and provides the school with a formal address as a cultural building. A professional performing arts theater can be utilized for public performances. A tower is placed on top of the theater as a sign for art and is a visible point of identification for the students. A public lobby serves as the entrance to the theater as well as an exhibition space in combination with the formal entrance. The four classroom buildings each house one of the four disciplines of art taught at the school – visual art, performing art, music and dance, and combine the art studios with general classrooms in a fluid sequence. This allows the art education to infuse every aspect of daily life in the school, and breaks down the student body of 1,800 students into smaller, more intimate groups. As the third building with a unique form the conical library becomes the symbol for education and is placed in the center of the school campus. Distinct facades reference the immediate surroundings, communicate the special content of the art school and place the building in the mental map of Los Angeles.
