Los Altos School District's Blach Intermediate School

Photographer Mark Luthringer, Los Altos School District, Blach Intermediate School Gymnasium. 

A tale of a beautiful collaboration…

This is the story of a district, like many, with several campuses with buildings in need of modernization and a desire to reduce energy consumption. This is also the story of an architect, who executed a sustainable modernization and surprised the district with a campus transformation.  Sustainable design strategies, combined with a commitment to learning from each project and increasing sustainability with each subsequent campus modernization, reshaped the district. The modernized district campuses stand as testament to the relationship between the district and the architect.

The Los Altos School District is comprised of nine campuses serving elementary and middle school age students. It is a district that prides itself on being at the top in academics in service to its community. The District realized that its campuses were badly in need of modernization and expansion, the community agreed, and a school bond was passed in 1998. In 1999, Gelfand Partners was hired by the District to design the modernization of Blach Intermediate School.

The campus that could…a catalyst for the District

A modernization and expansion project, Blach Intermediate School became a catalyst for the District, and established that modernized facilities could meet the same high-performance standards as new construction, leveraging carbon-friendly building reuse without sacrificing long term quality or energy performance. The renovated campus quickly became the flagship campus for the District, recognized as a Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) Pilot School due to the successful implementation of sustainable design and energy efficiency strategies, and prompted alignment to CHPS criteria for subsequent campus modernizations.

Blach Intermediate School 
Modernization, 2002

Blach Intermediate School is an existing campus that was in dire need of a modernization and expansion to house an increasing student population. From the earliest design phases, Gelfand Partners, an early advocate of advancing school facility sustainability, focused on providing a more energy efficient campus. The reuse of nine existing classrooms was a carbon-friendly alternative to constructing new classrooms, and the new library, student store addition, and additional classroom buildings were designed for greater energy efficiency. The project more than doubled the size of the campus for a total of 71,500 square feet of campus facilities. Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), the local utility company, assisted the design team with technical consultation and assisted the District with rebates through their Savings by Design program.

For the classroom areas Gelfand Partners designed spaces that created optimal learning environments. The north exterior walls were raised to accommodate the installation of operable clerestory windows to let indirect daylight into the learning areas. Combining increased daylight with intelligent light dimming technology to provide only as much artificial light as was needed helped to drastically lower the energy bills of the campus. In addition, existing covered walkways linking the buildings together were outfitted with skylights in random patterns, bringing natural light and playfulness from shifting light patterns as the sun moved across the sky, to the exterior corridors.

Intelligent HVAC systems that shut off when doors or windows were opened replaced older, less efficient systems. The HVAC system was tied into the natural ventilation system with controls that bypassed the economizer mode and opened the clerestory windows through actuators when conditions permitted. By turning off the economizer mode and using natural ventilation, the rooftop units could then turn off the fans, resulting in considerable energy savings. The systems are easy to operate and maintain. Though the campus size had nearly doubled, the campus energy use intensity dropped considerably.

Original campus square footage:  34,000 s.f.
Final campus square footage after renovation:  71,500 s.f.

Three years later, a 10,500 s.f. joint-use gymnasium building was added to the campus to serve the both the school district and the city of Los Altos and used as a venue for school athletic programs and neighborhood leagues. The gymnasium relies on a passive ventilation system and ceiling fans rather than being mechanically conditioned. Prefabricated panel and glazing systems bring natural light into the building which penetrates the windows and reflects off the wood floor, acting as a light shelf to fill the space with daylight. Bright and airy, the gymnasium demonstrates how passive lighting strategies can transform a typically dark and stuffy building genre. The gymnasium was awarded the Exemplary Sustainable Building Award by the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council and the design strategies were subsequently repeated at Egan Junior High School, establishing a model for the design of gymnasiums in the District.

Moving forward towards a sustainable future for the District…

Inspired by Blach’s design success and reduced energy costs, the District awarded a facility master planning contract to Gelfand Partners in 2004. The District and the Master Planning Committee tasked the firm with renovating several elementary school campuses using the same passive design strategies, energy efficient systems and sustainable features. The firm upgraded the energy efficiency for Almond, Oak and Springer Elementary Schools for the District, and in 2007, Santa Rita Elementary School was CHPS designed and Loyola Elementary School was CHPS verified and won the CHPS Green Apple Award that year.

In 2015, the District installed photovoltaic shade structures throughout district facilities and partnered with the local utility company to sign purchase power agreements. Since 2002, the improvements made at each campus had been designed to plan for emerging technologies; therefore, adding photovoltaic panels was easily accomplished with minimal disruption to campus facilities and provided for additional energy savings. The focus on using renewable energy systems to lower energy use district-wide paves the way for an attainable zero-net-energy level for the district in the future.

The collaboration of Los Altos School District and Gelfand Partners has spanned over two decades and has evolved from a single, initial renovation project to a symbiotic partnership between the District and the Architect. As an early adopter of sustainable technologies, Gelfand Partners demonstrated to the District that sustainability makes economic sense and provides for healthier, environmentally sensitive school communities. With facilities that successfully demonstrate energy savings over time, and a partnership that succeeds because of patience and trust, both entities have benefitted from the collaboration. Together they design for the future with a sustainable and carbon-friendly vision for Los Altos School District facilities. 

Want to find out more about the school campuses mentioned in this article? Check out the Additional Resources section below!

Los Altos School District  
District Superintendent: Sandra McGonagle 
Assistant Superintendent Business Services: Erik Walukiewicz

Architectural Firm: Gelfand Partners Architects
Contractor: Blach Construction

DSA Regional Office: Oakland