District Unveils Design Plans for Malibu High School

• Innovative ‘Green’ Roof Tops Dramatic New Profile in Campus Makeover

BY HANS LAETZ

The front of Malibu High School would be radically changed in favor of a sweeping pair of buildings topped by plants and photovoltaic cells, according to the first architectural drawings for new classroom and library facilities released this week by the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.
The familiar 1960s-style entrance to the school would be razed, and the main entranceway moved to the southeast side of the campus, under the plan to replace the school’s library and outmoded front office with a student, counseling, meeting and administrative center.
The “Schematic Design Submittal” unveiled by district officials Monday starts the public comment period as the district solicits comments from parents, faculty and students on the sweeping changes funded by the $168 million bond issue approved by voters. And it differs significantly from a “Master Facilities Plan” approved by the school board before the public vote.
The schematic design was to be formally unveiled at a minimally publicized meeting scheduled for Wednesday night, after the Malibu Surfside News went to press. District officials gave The News a sneak peak, and said a series of public meetings to listen to comments about the proposed architecture, school facilities and traffic plan will be held this fall to solicit input before any final plans are drawn.
As currently envisioned by the HMC architecture firm of Ontario, a sweeping two-story-high point would tower above the site currently occupied by the school’s outmoded library, pointing to the east over a new main school entrance and drop-off area. Most of the faculty parking currently at the southeast side of the school would be moved to a new lot east of the school’s amphitheater.
Planted shrubs and grasses would cover the roof of the new building, as well as that of a complementary new library/learning center/ café to be built where the current office is now. The top of the point would be covered with photovoltaic cells.
A series of artists’ conceptions show roofs covered with greenery angling down to the surrounding schoolyards, but do not show how pupils might be prevented from walking, or running, up the roofs to the proposed greenswards atop the principal’s office.
The plans also include using natural lighting, thermal mass, and green roof technology to cut utility costs, and stress that preservation of a classroom wing originally slated for demolition and replacement is a better idea from a conservation standpoint,
The former plans to demolish a single-story complex of 12 classrooms on the campus’s east side were shelved because the existing building is structurally sound, said Virginia Hyatt, who is heading the district’s efforts. Those classrooms would instead be gutted and rebuilt as science labs for the middle school.
A new administration building, under the massive point, and new library facility would both be two stories high, stretching along Morning View Drive where the offices, front parking lot and driveway exist now. Both new buildings would be about as tall as the existing library, Hyatt said, and would be set back from Morning View at angles, with the closest point about where the existing office building sits.
The library would include new computer labs, conference rooms, larger reading and shelving areas, and a student café.
A new amphitheater would be added in the middle school quad, in the interest of providing additional separation between the middle and high schools. Portable classrooms and a parking lot in the senior high school quad would be demolished, and a new quad constructed, under the plan.
Hyatt said the new design has been drawn up after listening to the Proposition BB Advisory Committee of parents, faculty and staff. But controversial provisions for traffic, circulation and the football/track stadium may generate opposition, given past concerns raised by Malibu Park residents.
The new plan also retains the chaotic student parking lot in the center of the educational campus made up of Malibu High and adjacent Juan Cabrillo Elementary School, and does nothing to eliminate the twice-daily Gordian knot of pedestrians, high school drivers, school buses and parents there. The current version of the project does not add significant parking east of the football stadium, where some parents have advocated relocating the student parking lot.
In addition, the project calls for lights, permanent seating and artificial, petroleum-based plastic turf to replace the grass football field. Malibu Park residents have claimed a promise was made more than a decade ago, as a condition for building the fields, that no lighting would be installed.
This week’s public meeting was announced in a small legal advertisement, and district officials said they were not sure other publicity followed. But they stressed no decisions are coming out of this first meeting, and vowed to do a better job publicizing subsequent sessions.
The district plans to wrap up environmental studies and design work next spring, start building the new parking lot in the middle of 2009, then start demolition and construction in the fall of 2009. Total completion is targeted for February 2013.
A specific budget for the Malibu project was not released in the preliminary study.