Pushing the limits of school design

The new Camino Nuevo Charter Academy is the kind of project Los Angeles could use more of: a thoughtful, low-cost work of architecture that embodies the kind of civic purpose and progressive ideals that so many public institutions give lip service to but rarely fulfill.

The project is located at Wilshire Boulevard and Burlington Avenue, in one of the city’s poorest immigrant neighborhoods. Built at a cost of $3 million, it will serve 250 middle school students, many of whom are currently being bused to areas as far away as North Hollywood because of overcrowding in the local school system.

But it is as architecture that the school becomes more than simply a practical answer to a nagging social problem. Designed by the Santa Monica-based Daly Genik, the building’s shimmering metal facade and dynamic interiors make it a monument to social optimism in a community that has few civic landmarks of note.

The school is part of an ambitious program launched by Philip Lance, an Episcopal priest and social activist who has long seen architecture as a valuable tool in shaping communal identity. Several years ago, Lance hired Daly Genik to design a small elementary school on the site of a former mini-mall at 7th Street and Burlington. Rather that demolish it, the architects transformed the mini-mall into a hive of social activity. Framed by elevated walkways on two sides, its dynamic central court is visually open to the street, a conscious effort to link inner and outer worlds.

The new middle school is a refinement of that earlier vision. As in the earlier project, Lance used a combination of private grants and bank loans to pay for the school’s construction. As part of the charter program, the school will be run independently of the Los Angeles Unified School District, although the state will provide about $7,000 per student per year to cover operating costs.

Housed in a renovated office building and adjoining warehouse, the school’s main entry is on Burlington, at the seam where the existing buildings join. From here, a central corridor leads to classrooms on either side. Administrative offices, a medical clinic and an adult learning center are set at ground level along Wilshire.

Seen from Wilshire, the structure is conceived as a vast tapestry of human activity. The ground-level offices are arranged as conventional storefronts, anchoring the building to the surrounding community. Above, two levels of classrooms are wrapped inside a massive perforated metal screen. During the day, the silhouettes of students can be seen moving among the various classrooms or lingering in the hallways.

The idea is to put the inner life of the school on public display. But the screen also sends a subtle social message. We live in a society inundated with media images of school violence -- news footage depicting gun-wielding teenagers, public service advertisements warning of kids on drugs. By opening up the school to public view, Daly Genik’s screen becomes a sort of reality check. It is a surveillance tool that serves to reassure us of education’s social value.

That notion of an architecture that strengthens social bonds is more than superficial. It is embedded in the design’s fabric. The main reception area, for example, is housed in a bright orange cube that is set into the facade along Burlington. Inside, a long, faceted wall lines one side of the main corridor. The wall’s surface folds back and forth like a gigantic origami sculpture. Fragments of the warehouse’s original wooden bow trusses span the space overhead. Above them, light spills down through large skylights.

The space evokes obvious metaphors. The light is the light of reason; the parting walls suggest an unlocking of the mind. Overall, the effect seems almost violent, as if the building were breaking apart to let the city’s life force flood in.

But the sculptural quality of the corridor is also used to emphasize the school’s socializing function. It is in such interstitial spaces that students make and break personal bonds, exchange ideas. By comparison, the classrooms are relatively quiet sanctuaries -- simple white boxes for the focused task of learning.

From the main floor, students can climb one of two staircases to the upper-level classrooms. These corridors have a more industrial feel. Ceilings are clad in steel panels; long, narrow benches line the walls. Behind them, light and air flow through the perforated metal facade facing Wilshire.

Here, the building’s narrative comes full circle. Cars stream by below; billboards rise in the distance. The cityscape comes into focus. The view speaks of distant opportunities. It also suggests that education’s meaning reaches beyond the introverted world of the classroom.

This is an apt gesture for an immigrant community. Many of the neighborhood’s inhabitants have recently arrived in this country. They often face economic instability, an uncertain future, a fragile relationship to the outside world. What Daly Genik has created is a meaningful expression of how to overcome such feelings of isolation.

The Camino Nuevo school is one of a growing list of innovative school designs in Los Angeles. The Santa Monica-based Morphosis is currently completing a promising school building in Exposition Park. The school’s machine-like forms -- covered underneath a massive landscaped berm -- make it a vision of social engineering. LAUSD also recently hired the celebrated Vienna-based Coop Himmelblau to design a performing arts school in downtown L.A.

The school district is planning to build as many as 120 new schools over the next decade. So far, there is no guarantee that the majority of them will rise above the level of mediocrity in design. It is just as likely that they will become emblems of society’s indifference to education’s social importance.

What Camino Nuevo school reminds us is that such failures are due to a lack of caring, not to a lack of ideas. Bold, socially innovative, Camino Nuevo offers a vision of what can be accomplished when the creative mind is put into action.