New Built

Award of Excellence

Guajome Park Academy

Vista Unified School District

Sprotte + Watson Architecture & Planning

Twelve years and the input of students, faculty, school district staff, Charter and VUSD school board members went into creating the vision for this atypical campus.  The educational spaces had to support a nontraditional, project-based curriculum where students practice self-directed learning, working independently with guidance from facilitators.  The concept expanded to a cluster of three learning centers.  Designed to be similar to today’s work environments, this innovative Learning Center concept combined with the projects-based curriculum provides students with powerful learning opportunities that exceed those offered in a traditional classroom. 

This small middle-high, 6-12 school consists of 110,000 square feet.  Each of three 16,000-square feet Learning Centers house 300 students and 12 teachers.  The campus’s building and clerestory forms relate to the agricultural forms of the museum barns and ranch buildings of the historic area.  The Student Support Building houses administrative offices, facilitator work areas and a Cyber Library. Visitors can view student projects in the two-story Exhibition Hall.  Students have additional educational opportunities in the adjacent regional park, the neighboring Antique Gas & Steam Engine Museum, and the historical adobe rancho.  To optimize interior daylighting, each building in situated in an east-west axis. The natural light provides visual relief, improves student performance, and helps mitigate utility costs.

Jurors said, “This project makes a fairly strong connection with community involvement and community learning.  It really takes a look at the whole idea of education for the future, and project learning is certainly one of those educational strategies.  The learning pods are separated and they are interconnected by the flow of the site, yet maintain independence for learning purposes.