BHS Faculty Housing

Faculty/Student dormitories expands learning beyond the classroom by connecting the school’s educational pedagogy with environmental sustainability at every level. A goal was to make an appropriate response to the great expansive beauty of the site by organizing the spiral of human movement on the site.  Just as in a traditional hill town the circulation winds up the hill, so the students and faculty walk along the site lengthwise and then head up a footpath to the next plateau of movement.   The dormitories establish a strong edge, clarifying the future development pattern for the school along this lower spiral of the school’s hill.

Providing an ideal living environment for the school of a close-knit community of teachers and students,  5 students dwell below a faculty family above.  Considered a 'Passive Building' it gains winter heat through south facing windows and shades in summer via 30" overhangs.  Features include a rainwater collection roof, thermal mass floors, an upper deck and an interior plan that is responsive to the natural sun cycle.  The housing creates awareness of the rich natural Ojai Valley via the carefully framed mountain views, the sun moving with the life patterns of the day and by the outdoor environment accessible at any moment via decks, overhangs, porches and shared cobblestone courtyards between the units.  

At the front façade a horizontal gray plank tile wall rises from the ground to set an entry for the first floor student dorms and moves up to form the 2nd floor patio wall entry of the faculty units.

Simple smooth trowel stucco and gray stone tile vertically on walls and horizontally on floors inside and out establish a feeling of place and connection to the other campus buildings visually.

In this hot climate the distinctions between inside and outside is important.  The inside living room feels like it expands to the 2nd floor deck, yet it also is made into a semi protected outside place by the expansively long overhangs and solid deck walls.  

The most arresting feature of the native landscape are the distant mountains in a large open valley which was once an walnut orchard.  These are continually referenced through the ‘frames’ provided between each building, and the carefully positioned corner windows.  Second to that are the remaining trees in what was once a walnut orchard.  New trees fill in the grid and each building is roughly the size of a larger walnut tree drip line.  This is important as the buildings do not overwhelm the landscape but fit within it gracefully. 

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