The San Lorenzo Valley K-12 campus contains the District’s Elementary School, Middle School, and High School. The campus topography has considerable slope, with each school located on a different terraced level of the campus. SSA Landscape Architects, Inc. collaborated with Beverly Prior Architects to design a multi-level library that served the Middle School as well as the High School. Serving as the Site Design lead, SSA developed a design that connected each campus to the Library through a series of walkways, bridges and way-finding elements. The primary site design challenge was to create an accessible path of travel from each school back to the library without incurring great cost to the client.
The central plaza between the Library and the Cafeteria was developed as the main student gathering space, with informal seating, grass berms and ornamental trees. Integrally colored concrete was used at the Library entrance to strengthen the design of the architecture, and link the building to the plaza. Colored concrete was also used throughout the space as pedestrian scale way-finding. A south-facing cantilevered deck was developed adjacent to the main plaza to serve as a secondary gathering space and casual lunch area.