This lease-leaseback project involves the replacement of a 100+ year-old unreinforced masonry middle school with a new school on the existing site. Three wood-framed school buildings surround a central courtyard. One of the buildings is three stories and houses general classrooms, specialized science classrooms, and an art/maker space with glass roll-up doors that open to landscaped courtyards on both sides. ZFA’s value engineering efforts modified the classroom building’s lateral system from previously designed steel-brace frames to more cost-effective wood shear walls.
The classroom building is connected to the adjacent administrative building with steel-framed exterior elevated walkways at each level. Special care was taken in detailing the seismic gap between the structures at the elevated walkways. Approximately 400 linear feet of concrete retaining walls that are up to 14 feet tall border the new buildings on the south side, which maximize the building areas on the sloped site. The administrative building houses both offices and a student library. It is centered over the retaining wall, with two stories of wood framing over existing grade on the high side and a partial plan concrete podium supported by concrete walls on the low side. Large windows and storefronts maximize light in the building and required a streamlined wood shear wall system to transfer loads around the openings.
A single-story wood-framed multi-purpose building houses a cafeteria, kitchen, stage, and gymnasium. The gymnasium has 80-foot-long, four-foot-deep exposed glulam beams supported by glulam columns. The cafeteria’s large glass storefronts utilize sawn wood lumber where possible to minimize costs.
Photo Credit: © John Sutton (2022)