Adjacent to the Wilshire Vermont Station mixed-use development is the Central Los Angeles Middle School which was designed as a prototype "urban academy" on a site with access to the regional subway and bus transportation system.

The main middle school structure is a 3-story steel frame building on grade with an EBF lateral framing system.  There is an adjacent 2-story gymnasium structure above one-level of below grade parking that is seismically separated from the steel frame building above grade level.

 The gymnasium has CMU walls with a steel framed metal deck and concrete roof that supports a playground and landscaping.  The main structure also has a large open roof playground area on Level 1 adjacent to the Gymnasium roof.

The project has many architectural features such as canopies, metal screen walls at the playgrounds, complicated exterior wall system and many feature stairs that required extensive steel framing design and coordination. 

We worked closely with the architect to integrate the exposed architectural steel framing with the structural design to meet the goals of these feature elements.