Carver Elementary Classroom Building
Location: Santa Ana, California
Size: 9,900 SF
Owner: Santa Ana Unified School District
Builder: Tilden-Coil
View in Gallery ModeGeorge Washington Carver Elementary School serves 640 K-5 students on a 3.7-acre site within a heavily populated neighborhood. Morrissey Associates designed a new 9,900 SF two-story classroom building that compliments the neighborhood, the existing campus buildings and honors the school’s namesake. The project also includes new outdoor learning spaces, a new lunch shelter, new campus entry, expanded parking lot, and new physical education areas.
The building features classrooms with natural light from windows on both the north and south walls, teaching walls, interactive digital displays and flexible small group learning rooms that connect adjacent classrooms to support collaboration and a variety of learning activities. A prominent mural of George Washington Carver made of perforated stainless-steel faces the playground and student plaza. The mosaic of multicolored blocks framing the mural represents the quest for racial justice and equality we continue to strive for.
Outdoor classrooms have concrete benches arranged in a half circle with shade trees and bench planters offering informal learning and socializing opportunities. Student gardens at the base of the mural and an espalier green wall entry covered in citrus vines provide learning opportunities for students to explore botany, local agricultural history and understand the achievements of George Washington Carver. This also allows sharing of produce with the neighborhood to strengthen community engagement. This entrance also allows greater security and creates a sense of passage from the outside into a secure focused learning environment.