Platt-Whitelaw Architects

SDUSD

Designing a Stand-Out School to Inspire Students and Staff

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This Back-to-School Year is Especially Exciting for Clairemont Canyons Academy Wildcats

It’s back to school time, and we’re marking the occasion by shining a spotlight on Clairemont Canyons Academy (CCA).

This public school stands out in the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD). It’s a mainstream elementary school with a high percentage of special-needs students. (SDUSD merges special ed programs into standard operations for diversity and a stronger student body.) As such, our design for the school includes many unique features.

For the last two years, the students have been using the new classroom building we designed, but when school starts for the 2024-2025 term, all the finishing touches will be complete. One of those touches that we’re particularly excited about is a ceiling-mounted harness, called a HOPSA dress track, which lives in the classroom of Karin Wehsener, Education Specialist, Moderate/Severe.

The harness enables children with limited mobility to be up close to an interactive board on the wall. Here, they can explore mechanical and tactile objects while easily moving themselves from side to side. We are particularly grateful to Ms. Wehsener for her valuable input throughout our work.

The Building

The 37,500-sf, two-story, ground-up administration and classroom building contains 14 classrooms, a maker’s lab, a sensory room and an administration core with student services. These services include counseling and speech and music therapy programs. More details about this building and its forward-thinking features can be found in one of our previous blog articles.

This year, the students will also have a new joint-use field and ball courts to use, and older buildings throughout the campus will be modernized. Students will have access to three new, shaded, outdoor learning classrooms that take advantage of San Diego’s temperate climate and offer the calming effects of an outdoor environment.

The Team

Our PWA design team of Sandra Gramley, AIA, Peter Soutowood, AIA, and Samantha Saltzman worked closely with SDUSD and the school to generate designs that allow for maximum positive impact on student learning and wellbeing, core values of community service-based learning and the logistics of building on an occupied site. We organized the programs and spaces within existing buildings in collaboration with the teachers and staff on campus to ensure equity and alignment with the school’s mission.

Without excellent construction execution, innovative designs can fall flat, so we are grateful to have Swinerton as our construction partner for CCA. The great communication and construction skills of their team have been invaluable in bringing this school design project to fruition.

Thank you

Our dynamic duo team is better characterized as a trio, because our SDUSD project manager Kurt Stolle is a talented visionary. We appreciate his leadership.

This trio grows to full-orchestra size when we account for the subconsultants, product representatives, contractors and site staff who stepped up to give the students of CCA an inspiring school.

Here’s to a great school year for the new and returning CCA Wildcats!

Sensory room photos by Peter Soutowood at Platt/Whitelaw Architects.
Other photos courtesy of Swinerton.

Hello, Sunshine! Platt/Whitelaw Architects Helps SDUSD Schools Go Solar

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By Sandra Gramley, AIA, LEED ap BD+C

At Platt/Whitelaw, we’re helping empower schools in more ways than one. While school design and modernization have long been part of our work product, some recent San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) directives have us literally powering schools.

As of September 2020, 7,332 K-12 schools throughout the nation use solar power. This number represents approximately 5% of all schools nationwide. The Brighter Future: A Study on Solar in U.S. Schools report goes on to list the top five states for schools using solar power: California, New Jersey, Arizona, Massachusetts and Indiana.

It’s no surprise that the Golden State, especially with Southern California’s abundant sunshine, factors large on that list. Locally, SDUSD, California’s second-largest school district, is creating one of the largest distributed solar energy plants in the United States, according to news released by AMSOLAR Corporation.

Engie Services reported that SDUSD is expected to achieve $9.08 million in energy savings over the life of its solar program. As California’s second largest school district, SDUSD is a leading example of what schools can do to practice energy efficiency.

It’s not just other school districts that pay attention—it’s also the students themselves. SDUSD students can learn about environmental responsibility and solar energy through onsite science and education programs that incorporate these solar installations in the curriculum.

Platt/Whitelaw Architects is very proud to be one of two San Diego architecture firms providing its services to help implement SDUSD’s ambitious goals to create solar energy at every one of its more than 200 school campus as well as various administrative facilities. Bond measures passed by local voters made this possible.

The District has also worked with Sage Renewable Energy Consulting, an independent energy consulting and project management firm based in San Rafael, California, that provides public agencies with energy expertise to plan, build and manage solar, storage and efficiency projects.

Our architects are providing criteria design to be used by design/build contractors for parking lot and playground shelters topped with solar panels at fourteen schools. Platt/Whitelaw staff is now designing for twelve more sites, some of which are administrative support facilities, including a transportation center where the solar panels will support the District’s plans to electrify its bus fleet.

Performing this work during the pandemic initially meant delays as some of the project team members were unable to assess the campuses while they were completely closed to the public. Ultimately, campuses were opened to limited personnel, and installation became much easier without having to accommodate students on site during construction. Overall, projects are completing on schedule.

The design work comes with some challenges. Most of the solar arrays are mounted on shade shelters, so architects need to consider path of travel so that playgrounds and parking lots can remain accessible under Title 24 standards.

Solar installation standards must be considered in the design, too. Panels need to be level rather than conforming to the slope of the ground below.

Solar panels have been critical for defraying energy costs from cooling classrooms. Fortunately, the cost savings goes beyond covering just air conditioning.

By lowering operating costs, school districts boost their budgets for costs associated with altering instructional programs for distance or hybrid learning, hiring more teachers, updating and expanding book supplies and more.

SDUSD’s energy savings program also included conversion to LED lighting and HVAC system upgrades. In 2015, the SDUSD’s Board of Education adopted climate mitigation and adaptation goals to achieve 100% renewable energy use by 2030 and various other strategies to increase environmental responsibility.

Ten years shy of that time horizon, SDUSD has seen dramatic results. According to Distributed Energy, “the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) lays claim to having one of the lowest utility costs per student in the country.” The District has reduced its energy usage by 25% since putting in place energy efficient strategies.

We’re honored to help the District achieve its climate mitigation and adaptation goals and to play a part in creating teaching opportunities for SDUSD’s more than 135,000 students.