The Barbareño/Ventureño Band of Mission Indians and the Chumash People
International
The reshaping of education through inquiry-based learning necessitates rethinking the spatial and experiential framework of schools. This groundbreaking public (state) high school, located in Malibu, is designed to be student-centered and facilitate the interdisciplinary collaboration needed for Project-Based Learning by blending learning and social life. Located between an existing middle school and an environmentally sensitive habitat, the net-zero energy facility for 500+ students makes landscape and climate integral to campus life while addressing a high-fire-hazard setting.Â
The building’s envelope layers planes and shading devices to expand on the hillside’s natural texture. Fire-resilient concrete shear walls, naturally weathering perforated copper panels, and corrugated cement board siding camouflage volume and form while also reinforcing indoor-outdoor continuity. The photovoltaic array above generates energy while contributing to shade and shadow that support outdoor classrooms. Integrated energy, water, and wildfire-conscious strategies–along with habitat restoration–strengthen local ecosystems to establish an integrated living/learning laboratory.
Malibu High School is an architectural embodiment of the environmental, social, and intellectual principles it advances—with sophisticated practicality, devoid of any kind of romanticization. It not only sensitively negotiates the landscape and represents the context within which it is set, but it also prepares for and defends itself against risks from the same environment.Â
A key social value embedded in this project is one of public and publicness. Malibu High School highlights access and education, in a high-quality learning environment. Building further on this is the publicness and permeability of the site, suggesting that to be future ready, one must be positioned within the community and the public. The school’s project-based learning model is spatialized as a distributed programming with buffers, to encourage collaboration.Â
Above all, two things really stand out. First, Malibu High School is about community, within and without, and the experience of wellbeing that comes from that relationality, proximity, adjacency to things and each other. And two, using the framework of spatial agency, the building is a work in progress. It is not just ready for ‘consumption,’ as it will keep ‘becoming,’ and keep learning and changing through use.
International Chapter Named Award For Sustainable Architecture
Malibu High School demonstrates a highly resolved integration of environmental performance, resilience, and pedagogy within a demanding coastal landscape. The project restores site hydrology and ecology while embedding net-zero energy systems within a coherent architectural framework. Passive design strategies, including daylight optimisation, thermal control, and natural ventilation, are complemented by on-site renewable energy generation and advanced water treatment systems that return treated water to the landscape. These outcomes are reflected in the project’s achievement of LEED Platinum certification.
Crucially, the project is conceived as a resilient community asset. Fire-resistant construction, defensible site planning, and high-performance air systems enable the school to operate as a refuge during extreme environmental events, extending its role beyond that of a conventional educational facility.
Sustainability operates here as a generative design driver, shaping spatial organisation, material selection, and long-term adaptability, and advancing a model for educational infrastructure that is both environmentally rigorous and socially embedded.
The world is changing and education needs to adapt. This building engages students differently than other school facilities. Treating the entire campus as a learning facility, the building allows students many options and opportunities to expand how and what they learn. Classrooms provide different challenges from physics, to film, to sculpture, to languages. The building supports a variety of project-based learning opportunities and career-tech explorations. The building allows the students to work in large classes, groups, or individually in differing modalities of learning. All of this connects the students within and outside of the Malibu environment.
Nathan Bishop, Partner, Lead Designer
Julie Eizenberg, Partner
Mandi Roberts, Architect
Will Colenso, Designer
Sam Ludwig, Architect
Helena Jubany (NAC), Partner-In-Charge
Michael Pinto (NAC), Educational Design Principal
Leticia Ochoa (NAC), Senior Project Manager
Phillip Reidel (NAC), Educational Planner
Esmeralda Ward (NAC), Educational Programmer
Tasha Lightning (NAC), Director of Research and Experience Development
Timothy A. Ballard (NAC), Technical Principal
Annette Wu (NAC), Principal
Brad Brewer (NAC), Job Captain
Hayden Moore (NAC), Technical Designer
Lily Mcbride-Stevens, Designer
Element Consulting, Inc., Construction Manager
Pringle Group, Project Inspector
Leighton/Verdantas, Geotechnical Engineer
Spurlock Landscape, Landscape Architect
PSOMAS, Civil Engineer
Thornton Tomasetti, Structural Engineer
P2S, MEP Engineering
Vantage Technology, Low Voltage Engineer
Largo, Trademark, Concrete Subcontractor
Muhlhauser Steel, Steel Subcontractor
Moe Plumbing, Plumbing Subcontractor
Taft Electric, Electrician
Standard Drywall, Inc., Framing Subcontractor
Van Nuys Sheet Metal, Sheet Metal Subcontractor
Golden Glass, Glazing Subcontractor
Arcadia, Curtain Wall
Verdical Group, ESD Consultant
Cal Solar, PV
RWDI, Acoustic Consultant
Handbuilt Studio, Environmental Graphics
C.P. O’Halloran Associates, Cost Consultant
Webb Foodservice Design, Foodservice
Oculus, Lighting Consultant
Kilograph, Renderer
AHSIRT, Ensitu Engineering, Wastewater
Linscott Law & Greenspan, Traffic
Woden, Code Consultant
Allana Buick & Bers, Inc., Envelope Consultant
Ensitu Engineering Inc., Waste Water Engineer