When Palisades High School opened in 1961, the low-slng buildings gracefully positioned on 29 acres and cooled by ocean breezes gave the campus the air of a country club. The space was luxurious compared to most LAUSD campuses and more than adequate to accommodate the small student body. Now, 46 years later, with a student body of 2,760, expanded course offerings and ongoing and future plans, school administrators have commissioned a new master plan. After a thorough search and interview process, the firm of Perkins + Will was selected to design a plan that will take the charter school into the future. The firm, with offices nationwide, includes K-12 education as one of its areas of expertise and a focus from the firm’s founding in 1935. In the past five years, Perkins + Will has designed more than four-million sq. ft. of educational space. “We were impressed by the amount of school and district master planning experience P+W had and by their innovative and inclusive approach to the process,’ said PaliHi Executive Director Amy Held. The firm is overseeing the design of LAUSD’s Central High School No. 1, on the site of the former Ambassador Hotel in mid-Wilshire slated to open in 2010. Similar in size to PaliHi, the new school is expected to serve 2,600 students in a six-story building, with three floors of classrooms over a base of parking and public elements. Two-thirds of the site will remain as open community green space and playfields. The first order of business at PaliHi will be how to optimize existing space, said Held. “There are little nooks and crannies, especially in the J Building, that could be used more efficiently.’ Currently, the J Building is used for graphic design, the study center, media room and two classrooms. ‘We are also going to look at upgrading some of the existing facilities,’ Held said. ‘We still have the original kilns in the art room, for instance, and the science lab setups need to be updated.’ Also to be factored into the overall plan are the new structures, such as the swimming pool, and the anticipated future visual and performing arts building. While the school was considered large for its day, there are others such as Birmingham at 72 acres and Granada at 40 acres that are giants in comparison. The topography at PaliHi also presents challenges; there are hills on the west and north sides of the campus. Perkins + Wills principal architect Wendell Vaughn and his team met with the PaliHi facilities group on the final day of the school term last Thursday for their preliminary meeting and focused primarily on accommodating short-term needs, Held said. ‘We now have 2 1/2 counselors and a half-time parent liaison, who have no homes,’ she said. Suggestions on increasing buildable space include using the existing faculty parking lot and transferring that parking to a rooftop or underground. School districts are exempt from city zoning rules, which would open the possibility for adding more vertical space to the campus, without compromising the architectural integrity of the original split-level, open corridor design. The school anticipates the completion of the master plan within nine months.
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