Palisades Charter High School Gateway
A string of native gardens that serve as a new front door for a Los Angeles high school
Palisades Charter High School gateway project addresses both pedestrian safety issues and the school’s desire for a prominent front door at its most important intersection. The design proposes a promenade that serves as a physical and visual link between the new gate and the original gate at the middle of the block while providing a more generous walkway for the hundreds of students that arrive and leave campus.
The featured element of the new gateway is the Senior Garden, the largest of a series of green spaces that follow one side of the promenade from end to end. Once an underused blacktop covered space behind chain link, the Senior Garden is intended to be a community space with native landscaping that captures views to the nearby ocean and mountains.
At the heart of the old entry courtyard is the California Garden which features a small orange grove amongst a pallet of drought tolerant low plantings. Nestled in the lower courtyard are a pair of seating areas that highlight the history of the site on large graphic panels while also featuring an existing clay tile mural, memory of a past art class project.
On behalf of Suisman Urban Design
