Pleasant Grove High School / Katherine L. Albiani Middle School

 Elk Grove, CA
Elk Grove Unified School District
        Pleasant Grove High School and Katherine L. Albiani Middle School share an eighty-acre site bound by large-lot residential areas on two sides and by two arterial streets. A Fire Station is located on one of the arterials. As a site adaptation of buildings used twice before, the focus of the planning process was the development of the site plan and its response to traffic impacts and the project's overall presence in an area experiencing suburban growth.
        A two-year planning process was at times challenging, including litigation and the rewriting of the Environmental Impact Report. While not the District's preferred way to receive community input, these events as well as City input, regional agency meetings and other public meetings shaped much of the project's layout.
        A major aspect of the planning process involved reducing the impact of the project's traffic. Schools generate high-volume, short duration traffic patterns that are not accurately reflected in standard formulas. To accurately engineer the infrastructure needed, existing schools were observed and new methods of accurately predicting school traffic patterns were used with the goal of minimizing the school's traffic impacts on the Fire Station and the intersection of the two streets. An on-site road collects traffic and provides access to the schools away from the two streets. From this on-site road, parking, auto drop-off lanes and service areas are conveniently configured and sized to encourage use, reducing congestion. Buses have a separate access, offset from an adjacent cross street to provide pedestrian access away from the Fire Station.
        The schools share a Library located within the bus's turning loop to define it as a common element not "belonging" to either campus. Each campus relates to the Library with its classroom buildings organized along an "Academic Avenue". The Avenue reflects the link between the two schools as part of a 7th thru 12th grade model that encourages students' connection to school, collaboration among teachers and fosters long-term partnerships with parents and the community. Students will have many opportunities to learn and serve throughout the entire complex.
The academic core of both schools is designed to provide organizational flexibility. In each of ten Classroom Clusters, eight classrooms have direct connection with a Project Room, allowing the schools to be set up as 'school within a school', 'houses', academies or traditional departments. The activity area of each school anchors the ends of the Academic Avenue with developed gathering spaces and outdoor amphitheaters.
        The buildings are massed and shaped to a human scale to keep this large complex from overpowering its suburban context. Vertical elements are carefully placed for interest and way-finding.
Responding to the needs of a growing community and the sensibilities of its neighborhood, Pleasant Grove High School and Katherine L. Albiani Middle School supports the learning community and embody the civic pride of Elk Grove.

Square Footage
289,580 s.f. / 79.9 acres

Total Construction Cost
$55.64 M

Delivery Method
Design-Bid-Build