Site
Located in the hills southwest of San Francisco, the Nueva School Hillside Learning Complex in Hillsborough, California is an independent school for 5th - 8th grade students. Three new buildings were constructed on an existing campus that already contained several smaller buildings and student classrooms inside a nearby historic home.
The new school includes three buildings - a library, a cafeteria / student center, and classroom building with administrative offices, seven classrooms, and a hands-on research and development lab - all of which are organized around a central plaza.
The San Francisco architecture firm of Leddy Maytum Stacy won the commmission for the project as part of a 2004 competition held by the Nueva School. The school was named a Top Ten Green Projectby the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 2008. It also earned LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification from the US Green Building Council.
Define The Problem
In 2004, the Nueva School held a competition for a new school building for 200 5th - 8th grade students to be built on the 33-acre site they owned. The school's competition guidelines called for a new building that would, "connect with nature, be a teaching tool, foster community and collaboration, and be accessible to all."
Several architecture firms from around the San Francisco area were invited to enter the competition. Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects were eventually chosen as the winner.
Collect Info
To gather information on the project, the architects at Leddy Maytum Stacy spent some time walking around the site, which originally contained an 18,000 square foot parking lot. They read the guidelines for the competition which included information on: the number of students needed to be served by the new building, types of rooms required, and the budget.
Site diagrams documented the path of the sun in the sky, the direction of the wind, the views, noise from the freeway, and access to exiting buildings and parking. Only after collecting this information did the architects begin working on early ideas for the new building.
Architects also met with and interview teachers and students to learn about their needs and wants for a new school building. Their photos help to record the existing conditions on the site: tall native oak and cypress trees, a sloping site, and a view to the San Francisco Bay in the distance.
Brainstorm Ideas
Once the project team had gathered information and visited the site, design principal in charge of the firm, William Leddy, began by making small sketches and diagrams that show the basic scheme or concept for the architectural design.
These quick sketches helped the architects document their ideas as these solutions change over time. The design was not final yet, but the big idea has been established.
Early on in the process, the diagrams show that the architects are considering several smaller buildings to be constructed on the site instead of one large building.
Develop Solutions
To develop these various solutions, the architects created a series of more refined diagrams and sketches called schematic drawings which were included on the competition boards they submitted to the Nueva School for review.
They also built several physical models to show how the new building would sit on the site and relate to the existing school buildings. Once a preliminary solution is chosen, these schematic drawings helped the architects and clients determine the pros and cons of each idea and how the new building might serve the needs of the students and teachers.
Not every part of the building is figured out at this stage of the design process. Detailed construction drawings of floor plans, sections, and details, for example, are not part of this step.
Final Design
Over the next year the architecture firm worked with school officials to refine the original design. Based on an analysis of cost vs. needs they reviewed original solutions and made decisions on which features remained, which were redesigned, and which were eliminated.
The firm worked closely with the general contractor responsible for constructing the building. Other collaborators - such as structural engineers, mechanical / plumbing engineers, acoustical engineers, lighting designers, civil engineers, landscape architects, electrical engineers, an advisor on green roofs, a food service consultant, and a project manager - were brought into the process and hired for their expertise.
The precise details of the building were determined during the 7 months that the firm developed a set of construction drawings and specifications - called construction documents. These documents were part of the legal contract between the architect and client, and used by the contractor to build the school.
Build It
For 14 months, the general contractor was responsible for constructing the building. Using the construction documents drawn by the architect and the various project consultants, the building slowly came together. Several cypress trees that were cut down are taken to a nearby lumber mill where the wood will be sawn into benches and wooden trellis screens for the new school. Native plants will be used throughout the site and on the two new green roofs.
