Project-in-Design

Award of Excellence

Del Sur Elementary

Poway Unified School District

NTDSTICHLER Architecture

Del Sur Elementary School will be located in a unique residential development where the land-use planning techniques and residential styles create a walkable community reminiscent of California’s early suburban communities.   The programming process determined that teachers would prefer a design that maintains a neighborhood village concept of classroom grouping that also encourages interaction between teachers from different villages as well.  The concept emerged of a school under one roof; a single building with 32 classrooms for 800 students that would house all of the functions of the school to create stronger relationships between teachers and students.

The single building ‘school house’ concept also provided an excellent opportunity for achieving high performance design. Less roof area and exterior wall surfaces reduce heating and cooling demand. The smaller building footprint allows for a smaller site purchase and the floor area ratio far exceeds the 1.2 required for CHPS [chips] compliance.  Del Sur Elementary School addresses the neighborhood by placing the building at the street, not behind a parking lot.  Deliberately chosen to create a ‘front yard’ relationship with the community, the main façade was set back from the street. The school was designed to be an active part of the community by clearly expressing local planning guidelines and supporting the walkable community concept.

Jurors said this submission included what some other submission didn’t, which is to demonstrate and indication and result of the design process and the involvement of a variety of stake-holders.  A juror commented, “The strength of this scheme lies in its organization, in what I take to be pedestrian streets, which are reflected in the architecture by the gable roofs, and can be experienced both inside and outside.”