The Los Angeles Unified School District recently opened the $75 million Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez Learning Center, a high school in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights, near Little Tokyo. Designed by Nadel Architects in a joint venture with Barrio Planners Inc., the 114,000-sf school is vertically integrated, allowing the campus to fit on a compact, six-acre site. The architects incorporated traditional Mexican design features, including vibrant colors, bold geometric shapes, deeply recessed windows, and colonnades. The learning center consists of two, 500-student learning communities with courtyards that open into a central plaza. It is the first high school to open in East Los Angeles in more than 85 years.
Related Stories
K-12 Schools | Aug 13, 2021
A new P3 guide for K-12 school construction is released
This alternative financing isn’t a silver bullet, but it does provide options to cash-strapped districts.
Contractors | Jul 23, 2021
The aggressive growth of Salas O'Brien, with CEO Darin Anderson
Engineering firm Salas O'Brien has made multiple acquisitions over the past two years to achieve its Be Local Everywhere business model. In this exclusive interview for HorizonTV, BD+C's John Caulfield sits down with the firm's Chairman and CEO, Darin Anderson, to discuss its business model.
K-12 Schools | Jul 9, 2021
LPA Architects' STEM high school post-occupancy evaluation
LPA Architects conducted a post-occupancy evaluation, or POE, of the eSTEM Academy, a new high school specializing in health/medical and design/engineering Career Technical Education, in Eastvale, Calif. The POE helped LPA, the Riverside County Office of Education, and the Corona-Norco Unified School District gain a better understanding of which design innovations—such as movable walls, flex furniture, collaborative spaces, indoor-outdoor activity areas, and a student union—enhanced the education program, and how well students and teachers used these innovations.
K-12 Schools | Jun 29, 2021
A Maryland school system launches a P3 program to speed up K-12 school design, financing, and construction
Gilbane and Stantec are part of a consortium that breaks ground on six new schools this week.
Resiliency | Jun 24, 2021
Oceanographer John Englander talks resiliency and buildings [new on HorizonTV]
New on HorizonTV, oceanographer John Englander discusses his latest book, which warns that, regardless of resilience efforts, sea levels will rise by meters in the coming decades. Adaptation, he says, is the key to future building design and construction.
K-12 Schools | Jun 20, 2021
Los Angeles County issues design guidelines for extending PreK-12 learning to the outdoors
The report covers everything from funding and site prep recommendations to whether large rocks can be used as seating.
Wood | Jun 10, 2021
Three AEC firms launch a mass timber product for quicker school construction
TimberQuest brand seeks to avoid overinvestment in production that has plagued other CLT providers.
Digital Twin | May 24, 2021
Digital twin’s value propositions for the built environment, explained
Ernst & Young’s white paper makes its cases for the technology’s myriad benefits.
Daylighting | Mar 7, 2021
Texas intermediate school lets the sun really shine in
Solatube tubular daylighting devices bring sunlight into the two-story commons/media space for 600 students in grades 3-5 at Sunnyvale Intermediate School.
Market Data | Feb 24, 2021
2021 won’t be a growth year for construction spending, says latest JLL forecast
Predicts second-half improvement toward normalization next year.