New Middle School Campus

Pacifica School District
Pacifica, Calif.

• Completion Date: March 2003
• Square Footage: 47,770 (New Construction)
• Final Project Cost: $16.1M

The coastal community of Pacifica set out on an ambitious course to improve their seven campuses and actively participated in a master planning process that led to a $65 million, six-year project. Among other recommendations, the plan established the need to demolish an existing campus – suffering from coastal erosion – and construct a new campus: the Ingrid B. Lacy Middle School.

The special social and academic needs of a middle school were addressed by organizing classrooms and science labs into three independent clusters around a connecting central courtyard. This supports the school’s educational program by reducing the scale of the campus into three 250-student units anchored by the large gathering spaces of the library/media center, gymnasium and multi-purpose room.