PIRL

Pacific Palisades, California

Completed 2016

The Project Idea and Realization Lab (PIRL) is a new design technology lab and classroom for St. Matthew's Parish School that celebrates the design process as integral to education. Both indoors and out, the two teaching spaces provide comprehensive learning opportunities that enable a critical approach toward multidisciplinary, design-based collaboration. Daylight control and geometric discretization are critical design themes. The student-operated retractable canopy is a didactic expression of architecture, engineering, and sailing design that creates a covered outdoor teaching and making space. The classroom interior, taking spatial and programmatic cues from Stanford's Institute of Design, provides a technology platform for creative collaboration on projects ranging from robotics to filmmaking. The completed design lab interior has become a nexus of creative learning on campus, and is presented to visiting educators and parents as a reflection of the school's academic ambitions