The
new construction was prompted due to a lack of seismic safety in existing
buildings and the resulting need for the functions housed in buildings that had
to come down. Of great importance
was restoring food service, administration, library, and to some degree sports
facilities. Jack McLaughlin was
brought in as superintendent in part because he has a record of working hard to
push construction of buildings with good results.
He was a strong supporter of athletics and made this an important
component of the project. He was also very adamant about the location of administration
in the site…all other program had to be designed around this.
The resulting design stays fairly true to the sketches Jack laid out on
a napkin at the beginning of the projects inception.
The plans of the principal are to keep the campus open, but to promote on
campus activity through open space and food service.
The fear in closing the campus is that if you apply too many constraints
on the students, they will reject education, run away.
The
original master plan of 1937 was abandoned in the sixties when priorities
changed. During this time, the
school was trying to face Kittredge, a street that the 1937 plan eliminated
through the campus. Building B was
constructed at this time, adjacent to the 1920’s building C.
As the need to retrofit and expand the facilities at Berkeley High School
came around in the early nineties, the school district had returned to the 1937
plan…addressing Milvia. With the
demolition of the previous food services building, this is also were the most
space was afforded. The current
master plan and construction does vary greatly from the 1937 plan in the
functions of buildings and what a school should be.
The 1937 plan not only had full trade school, highly specialized
components, but also multi-floored library (an aspect not needed as much now
with the advent of the computer) and space given to space (grand hallways). The new construction uses materials, rhythm, etc. to fit in
with the differing ages of the old buildings.
The use of board formed concrete was important to the school district as
a way to tie the buildings together. Actually
if you look at an old photograph of the existing buildings fronting Martin
Luther King, Jr. Way and compare it to the new construction when the forms were
first removed, it would be hard to tell which building is which.
The
SMWM master plan of completed in 1996, showed the old gymnasium torn down and a
new, smaller building replaced. Since
then however there has been debate over keeping the gym and better utilizing
space or starting fresh. Since the
building is now officially ruled to be not seismically sound, it will have to be
demolished, planning meetings will start when this current project is completed.
The debate is now turning into an issue of how much space is needed.
Do you construct for current demand or do you look to the future and try
to foresee possible demand?
Once construction began, few changes have been made to the project. Those that have are mainly minor office arrangement changes and the conversion of two classrooms to storage and receiving. Also, the BUSD facilities supervisor (Lew Jones) has pushed to keep most smaller aspects, fixtures, etc. to what was specified. The school district has also been flexible with the scheduling and construction time. They feel that since they have been running as a functioning school for this long, a little longer won’t hurt. They are more interested in the end result turning out as they want.