AGUALTA STEAM ENGINE MIDDLE SCHOOL

Agualta STEAM Engine is a mass timber structure designed on a modular grid, both for construction efficiency and as a connection to the street grid that defines the neighborhood. The building’s curvilinear floor plates, roofs, positioning of the water towers, and the courtyard orientation of the existing school buildings create a central open plaza that provides opportunities for large community gatherings. The space planning of the work spaces and classrooms is rationally rectilinear to encourage familiar learning environments for the students. The two hubs of these classrooms and labs are arranged around a central double-height collaboration space for activities and outdoor teaching wrapped by the vertical circulation. Agualta STEAM Engine transforms Southern California’s commonplace iconography of a water tower into markers of place, sustainable futures, and communal identity. The contrast between the rational classrooms and the expressionism of the curved organic spaces reinforces the middle school’s STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) educational approach.