Lessons Learned: A Symposium on School Design
LAUSD / USC School of Architecture / J . PAUL GETTY Trust

Session: 2A - Landscape Concepts and Materials

Scribe: Janek Dombrowa

Attendees:
Robert Timme, Dean USC School of Architecture
Marc Rios, RIOS Associates
David Martin, AC Martin and Partners
Johnson Fain and Partners
Daynard Tullis, Morphosis
Maru Brown; Ian , Tetra Design
Robert Uyeda, Tetra Design
Pirooz Shhhahhrdar,
Mia Lehrer, Mia Lehrer Associates
Steven Kanner, Kanner Associates
Christoph Kapella, Christoph Kapella Associates
Ron Fitch, Martinez/Kuch
Steven Olsen, Arquitechtonica
Keith Palmer, Bryant Palmer Soto
Mar Ann Ray, Studio Works
Nick Seirup, Perkins + Will
Helena Jublany
Chet Widom, WWCOT

Chronology
David Martin

Landscaping, vertical, parking structure and school structures

--Courtyard, outdoor room, programmed, all vertical circulation in outdoor room with photovoltaic shade for room and gathering spaces

--Favorite landscape, Johnson Fain two courtyards, Villa Lante, city/pre-city natural world

--Materials, concrete/decomposed granite/mulch, walls-graphic wall, expressive of community

--Two-story addition on site, in-fill between two historical buildings, landscape concept as solution-infill green walls with outdoor teaching areas, landscape, vertical and horizontal

--Courtyard vs. workspace, focus on surrounding activities

--Barrio Planners East LA High School #1, two courtyards, save all trees

--NTTB Architects, very dense campus with two-story parking structure with tennis courts on top of parking, anthill metaphor

--Perkins + Will four schools, buildings on perimeter of block, landscape experiences are core to school experience, centralized and linear organization

--John Dale-landscape as part of teaching environment and extension of indoor environment

--AC Martin- landscape engages /screens are component of eating experience

--Tension between guidelines vs. no guidelines with advantages and disadvantages to both

--DAC - advocacy, minimum guidelines, and project managers should not dictate budget or compliance strategy

Proposition 40 - YES
· Partnering for dollars with community
· Joint use
· Park use
· Community pride

DAC - Recreations and Parks, City Planning Commission, DWP - Partnering with LAUSD
· Energy policy/School bond
· David Martin, are we inventing a school type? - a unique school prototype

Chet Widom - increase LAUSD support of role of DAC
· Project managers a problem!! Perception of many architects

Mark Rios - Big idea vs. Affordability
· Build intelligence into standards
· Establish task force for guarding standards
· Community education - participation - extending life of natural systems
· Prioritize - remember big picture of long term viability

Mia Lehrer - Minimum standards

Campus as oasis
· Social gathering space
· Essential to urban landscape

Campus Greening Principles - distribution
· Use in teaching at USC
· Landscape as part of energy policy
· Transmittal of white papers: To Roy Rohmer and Kathi Littman; To project managers

Mia Lehrer School #10
Culinary program opens onto herb and vegetable garden
Music program opens onto amphitheatre
Trees should be planted in groves wherever possible
Harken back to childhood memories of "exterior space"

Mark Rios - his office started with limited ideas at first - this developed into an entire range of notions and now sees an opportunity for "large idea" conceptual thinking. Suggests all prepare a booklet listing a range of concepts and ideas, also identify what was limiting in the process to date.

Wrap -up
· Big landscape ideas - center piece of school, fully integrated element of teaching and community environment
· LAUSD should bring landscape architects and landscape issues into site selection and programming
· Landscape was a primary element of site planning and should be prioritized as such by LAUSD
· LAUSD Budget should be reconsidered - landscape perceived by LAUSD as additive rather than essential component of budget
· Guidelines, not stringent standards
· Advocacy by DAC
· Advocate long-term community participation
· Give something to community to own and maintain, community will get support and additional funding
· Add exuberance
· Schools as gardens of pride

Key Issues:
The discussion during this session was focused on the experiences of architects and landscape architects in addressing landscape perception, by LAUSD design process and challenges of time and budget and difficulties of thorough integration of landscape concepts into projects. The general sentiment was that landscape was seen by LAUSD as landscaping, as additive, near the end of budget priorities and confined to a limited range of possibilities. However, this evolved during the planning and design process into a more fundamental role in site planning and became an integral part of many schemes. There was a consensus that from this learning experience a new understanding can arise. Landscape ideas should be "big" in scope and play a primary role in site organization, programming and campus design and construction.

A booklet of principles should be generated. The "book of ideas" can be a flexible guide and catalogue. Gardens can and should be a part of teaching and community spaces. Landscape has to be seen as having a critical "environmental role" in many aspects. It should be integrated into planning policy, fiscal policy and energy policy. The role of living systems is crucial to the urban fabric and to the perception of the world by the students and must be represented as such in school environments.

Landscape architects and building architects want to see a connection with the community at the early planning level and all related policies directed toward the neighborhood derived from integrating the school into the texture of the community. Involving the school parents and stakeholder organizations can expand the narrow understanding of fiscal limitations. Capital funds assigned to the landscape/environment budget can be increased through non-LAUSD sources if the community understands the value of these systems. Pride invested in gardens in communities of limited resources was acknowledged. Maintenance funds can therefore be augmented through community participation and pride in the school and its living systems.

Landscape has been integrated in many projects into the energy performance of the buildings. This approach should be consciously expanded and given a role in planning lifecycle budgets. Summer shade, winter exposure to solar heat gain and the wider temperature stabilizing possibilities of horizontal and vertical "living systems" on each school campus should be fully integrated into planning and design. Permeable surfaces allowing percolation of rainwater are essential to the cycles of living systems and must be considered and incorporated into urban schools.

Many participants felt invigorated and excited by the range and potential of available possibilities. The disconnect between stated LAUSD policy objectives, institutional intention and actual practice remains problematic and must be constantly reevaluated. Acknowledgement and awareness of this important fact will allow lessons learned from the to date processes to change the future and open design, construction and maintenance programs to their greater potential.

Constraints, Problems and Design Opportunities:
The limited budgetary role assigned to Landscape is misguided. The viability of living systems in a dense urban context is crucial to health. Therefore, Landscape should be prioritized like structure or enclosure and developed to fulfill its roles as a source of air quality improvement, temperature stability, solar radiation protection and as an example to school children of its value to all living systems. This notion has wide urban implications practically and philosophically. Both aspects should be explored.

Problems:
· Landscape design activity and budget perceived as additive and adjunct
· Enters process very late and is given short time to design and document
· Permeable mat difficult to use due to perception as erosive and one not tried on a larger scale
· Trees and specimen size too small to survive and larger too costly under current budget hierarchy.
· Guidelines are applied by project managers with narrow perceptions disabling integration of creative solutions to space and budget limitations.

Design opportunities:
· Environmental awareness can be the cornerstone of LAUSD policy and result in widespread transformation of attitudes and practice.
· Integration of interior and exterior - expansion of limited sites through creative design of interior and exterior space, through site responsive programming allowing exterior teaching environments
· Architects should integrate into enclosure and façade systems to permit deciduous species to shade and expose interior space in seasonal cycles.
· In Johnson/Fain C. Los Angeles High #10, Mia Lehrer office had to overcome great resistant to construction of an amphitheatre. Only when it became clear it could function as an exit stair, eliminating cost of additional fire exit it was accepted as an allowable use of space and budget. This creative application of guidelines is necessary to overcome limitations imposed by small sites and construction budgets.
· Lifecycle cost analysis and planning should consider role of landscape in reducing energy consumption. For example, vertical planting of deciduous specimens has the potential of reducing summer gain and allowing for winter insulation.

Recommendations:
Incorporate landscape/environmental planning early in the process. Allow these issues to be part of site selection and planning with the community. Revise LAUSD policy accordingly.

Focus on large ideas. Make conceptually strategic and integrated impacts in the formulation of the school site and building solution.

Landscape systems should be considered as part of all the horizontal and vertical planes in the school. For example roof planting and vertical screening of building walls, living walls, etc. should be fully explored and creative solutions accordingly deployed.

Reevaluate policy to budget larger specimens. Concentrate trees in groves to create microclimates to assist the living systems of the trees and generate gathering areas under the canopies.

Fiscal planning should consider alternative community funding source. Include the community in finding funds to maintain courtyards and gardens. Develop financial partnerships and stewardships with local organizations. Focus neighborhood pride on the school environment.

Expand the LAUSD material and specimens guidebook to include concepts and large scale guidelines. Make clear that guidelines are for reference and exploration of ideas rather than specific solutions. Engender creative and flexible thinking in the interaction of all involved parties.

Diversity of approaches must not be constricted. Rather, it should be encouraged as part of the broad contexts of LAUSD facilities. The physical demographic neighborhood diversity simultaneously requires and permits varied approaches to design and specific of environmental systems rather than cookie cutter solutions. Gain from repetition is minimal precisely because one solution does not fit all.

LAUSD Comments and Clarifications: