High-Performing Students in a High Performance Environment

High Tech High is founded on three design principles: personalization, adult-world connection, and a common intellectual mission. The owner and design team shared one vision: Reuse a former military facility by creating an open floor plan with a ‘non-institutional’ feel, and adaptable common spaces that could serve a variety of needs and functions. To accomplish this, select interior shear walls were removed, and new shotcrete shear walls and grade beams were added around the exterior of the building, and at discrete locations in the building interior. A new third story constructed of structural steel framing and an untopped metal deck was added to the existing two-story building. The front wall of the third floor was an open corridor and glass storefront, requiring a rigid diaphragm for this three-sided box structure. A horizontal steel truss was used in place of a concrete deck in order keep the weight down and to minimize the impact on the structure below. In addition to the renovation of the existing building and third floor addition, a new monumental staircase and elevator structure were added as the focal point and entrance to the building. We used our 67 years of research and understanding of structural responses to earthquakes to develop a solid renovation at minimum cost and impact without compromising budget or the school’s opening deadline. This project won a 2007 Structural Engineers Association of California Engineering Excellence Merit Award.