Pueblo Academy
ADAPTIVE RE-USE MERIT AWARD
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PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Pomona Alternative School provides educational alternatives to students throughout the Pomona School District . It offers services and classes at five high schools, six middle schools, and various sites in the community. While the programs, students, and locations of PAS are diverse, its mission is specific: To provide an instructional program appropriate for each student in a flexible, nurturing environment that will prepare each student to communicate effectively, be a lifelong learner, and become a productive member of society.

The vision for all Pomona Unified School District students is that they are provided with an opportunity to learn the state and district standards necessary for the high school exit exam and college admission requirements.

Data Owner Pomona Unified School District Type of Facility Unique learning environment Type of Construction Renovation/modernization Area of Building 114,000 square feet Total Project Cost $19,000,000 Status of Project Completed

Credits Architect Thomas Blurock Architects Costa Mesa, CA Structural Engineer Johnson & Nielson Associates Irvine, CA Mechanical Engineer Fundamant & Associates Irvine, CA Civil Engineer Bohler Engineering, PC Electrical Engineer FBA Engineering Newport Beach, CA

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PROJECT CONTEXT

• Size of school district, college, or client organization:
  35,000 students
  
• Population of community:
  536,223 people

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QUALITATIVE PROJECT DATA

• What were the three greatest challenges of this project?
  1. Adapting an existing discount store into an elementary school
  2. Integrating a school into a mixed-use educational/commercial complex.
  3. Adapting the structure to more stringent earthquake codes for school use.
  
  
  
• What are the three most unusual features of the solution?
  1. The school's impact on urban revitalization.
  2. The interaction of several multi-use educational pods.
  3. The effects of placing a school in a multi-use urban mix.

1. What is the philosophy of the client? What process was used to establish the vision and goals for this project? Who was involved? How did the process affect the learning environment?
   The client was primarily interested in providing as much student housing as possible. This part of Pomona has the highest student density in an extremely overcrowded district. The district had acquired a failing shopping center, half vacant, and was interested in developing a multi-use complex on the site, combining traditional educational uses with adult education, social services, teacher training, district administration, and private commercial space. The process was a dynamic and constantly shifting dialog between all the users and stakeholders, resulting in a truly mixed-use urban complex.
   
   
2. What goals or guiding design principles did the team establish to inform the design of the building? How is the building an expression of the philosophy and goals? What were the primary needs? How were those needs creatively accommodated? What method was used to verify that the design met the goals and provided for the needs? What is different and innovative about the learning environments in this project?
   The guiding principles of design were a balance between the district’s need for space, the opportunity created by the shopping center and innovative school design. The school was conceived as autonomous pods of no more than 600 students each. Each pod was designed to be distinctive through color, form, and size. Additionally, each pod was designed to be able to adapt to anything from an elementary to a high school program. The shopping center inspired the notion that the school could be a series of small schools of various grade level configurations, each with a subadministration under a master administration, and all sharing key resources such as library, assembly, food service, and playfield. Under this model the school could be integrated into a larger urban context, much like tenants occupy a shopping center or a downtown. In addition, the school would bring in people who would then take advantage of the other activities in the facility, creating a true urban synergy.
   
   
3. How does this project exemplify excellence in design?
   The design was the result of an integrated process of discovery, involving diverse stakeholders. With program-driven projects such as schools, this must be the basis of architectural excellence. In addition, there was no prototype for this school, which required the development of new prototypes. Because the building was too large for just a school, other elements were introduced that are not typically included for budgetary reasons. The excellence of Pueblo is in its synthesis of diverse forces, its commercial flexibility, and its ability to be a laboratory for new educational forms, mixed uses, and new synergies.
   
   

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SPECIAL DESIGN CRITERIA

• How did the planning and design involve the larger community?
  The diverse stakeholders--educators, administrators of individual programs such as adult education and child-care, and commercial participants and partners--not only informed the design, but formed it. As there was no prototype for a project of this type, either educationally or commercially, the input of the stakeholders about basic design and planning questions was crucial.
  
  
• Did the planning process include partnerships and, if so, how did those partnerships affect the design?
  The Village project is a lesson in partnerships. In addition to the existing commercial tenants of the center and the educators, the abundance of space in the center as a whole created the opportunity to involve other partners, including the district's child care service division; Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) training; the JPL science curriculum center; district adult education programs; satellite campuses of Mt. San Antonio College, Cal Poly Pomona, and Western Medical Center; a branch of the Pomona Police Department; and several ROP programs.
  
  
• What aspects of the clients' goals and program shaped the project, and how does the design reflect those goals?
  Pomona Unified has a culture of innovation unique among school districts, which made a project such as Pueblo Elementary and the Educational Village possible. In one of the planning meetings, the district's goals were likened to “taking a photograph of a cloud.” Starting from a need to provide educational space economically and quickly, the district allowed exploration, which created new goals as well as new achievements.
  
  
• Describe different and effective uses of space for supporting learning.
  An important district goal was to provide teaching space that supported learning. A key element of this was the transparency of classrooms. The classroom space itself is fairly standard. Glass, however, is maximized in the corridors and there are no blinds or coverings on the windows. This allows teachers to see each other, promoting collaboration and enhancing security. In addition, it creates supervision of the corridors, allowing their use as secondary teaching space.
  
  
• How does the design incorporate technology to enhance learning?
  The district is committed to giving all students access to the maximum amount of technology possible. All teaching spaces have computer stations with Web connectivity, at a five-to-one ratio. Computer labs and a fully integrated media center are a part of the program. In addition, the Village is a technology hub for the district, with main district-wide servers and space for faculty training.
  
  
• How does the design encourage lifelong learning?
  The creation of a mixed-use educational complex has profound implications for lifelong learning. Pomona is a largely Hispanic, economically disadvantaged community with a high percentage of under-educated parents. Education is a lower priority than in many of the surrounding communities. To integrate education into daily life the way this project does creates the impetus for lifelong learning. Specifically, the project houses adult education, teacher training, and university/community college centers designed like mall shops.
  
  
• What aspects of the design responded to the surrounding physical and cultural context?
  The fact that this was an existing building, and a shopping center at that, was a vital determining factor in the design. Interestingly, the shopping center was larger than the square footages normally encountered in school planning. This created new opportunities and challenges. The team was able to implement its 600-student pod design and still provide auxiliary spaces for uses not found in most educational projects.
  
  
• How did the design fit into the existing context of neighborhood and community?
  Pueblo, including the Educational Village campus, creates a new context and urban pattern. The shopping center, once the commercial hub of the surrounding community, was failing after the construction of a freeway drew most of the retail traffic north. The educational portions generate activity in the space and act as a commercial anchor, which in turn creates new commercial viability. The existing commercial space is now healthy. In addition, through this process the district realized its position as the largest developer of new space in the city. The school district is now the primary force in redeveloping existing communities as well as providing education .
  
  
• How did the design respond to the climatic and topographical site constraints?
  Not applicable.
  
  
• What creative use was made of materials and building systems?
  Not applicable.
  
  
• Describe the strategies for passive and active energy efficiencies.
  The school received an additional 5% energy efficiency funding grant for using an energy management system, low energy lighting, motion detectors, classroom daylighting, and other features. The school uses many small-scale energy saving devices.
  
  
• Describe other sustainable design materials, methods, or practices implemented in the project.
  See above.
  
  
• How did the design minimize short-term and/or long-term maintenance?
  All exterior materials--metal siding/roofing, integral color stucco, hot dipped galvanized steel, and concrete--are designed to eliminate maintenance. There are no exterior painted surfaces
  
  
• If the project used existing building infrastructure, what imaginative design features evolved?
  A key feasibility issue in the development of Pueblo was compliance with earthquake and fire codes. In California , any structure housing children in a regular K-12 program is subject to a more stringent building code. All other uses, such as adult education and administration, are not subject to this restriction. After much study the regular K-12 uses were isolated in a separate structure, which was simple enough to be feasibly upgraded and structurally separated.
  
  
• How did the architect make a difference in making the project happen?
  The architect was an integral part of the team that forged this program by facilitating discussions with the users, testing and formulating solutions, and producing the building. The lack of precedence for the complex presented challenges, yet eliminated preconceptions. The architect was key in formulating the synthesis and the resolution of all the issues that led to the final solution.
  

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