Malibu High School: A Hillside Laboratory

Designed by Koning Eizenberg Architecture and NAC Architecture between the Pacific Coast and the Santa Monica Mountains, Malibu High School integrates into the coastal hillside with exceptional sensitivity. It serves 525 students. The design team describes the project as a “hillside laboratory” – a phrase that captures the aim of the project to go beyond learning to integrate education with the natural environment.

Collaborative teaching and hybrid learning spaces

Guided by the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s progressive project-based learning model and a robust public outreach process, including 28 community meetings with students, teachers, parents, and administrators, the building configuration and layout are a departure from traditional siloed models. Subjects are organized into collaborative sets, with science labs, art studios, maker spaces, and humanities and math classrooms arranged around informal collaboration spaces.

Teacher workspaces are not isolated but distributed throughout the collaborative sets, encouraging spontaneous daily interaction. Administrative offices do not overlook the campus from the perimeter but are integrated into the building’s fabric. The double-height commons serves as a study hub, with expansive glazing that reveals the activities inside.

Malibu High School: A resilient, sustainable campus

The design team’s response to the school’s context was fundamental to its success. Following the devastating 2018 Woolsey Fire, fire safety became the primary concern for the Malibu community. Working with the local fire department, the design team specified entirely non-combustible materials, including reinforced concrete, steel, and metal and fiber-cement panels. The strategy includes defensible space zones, a fire access road encircling the structure, and specialized landscape design. The school also serves as a community wildfire refuge.

The design reestablishes the site’s natural topography and hydrology, eliminating the need for retaining walls while restoring two acres of Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area into an outdoor classroom. A continuous roof canopy hosts a photovoltaic array, enabling the building to achieve net-zero energy while providing shaded outdoor learning areas. Energy simulations project an EUI between 0 and 2 kBtu/m2/year, achieved through passive strategies including extensive daylighting, operable windows, and external solar shading, paired with radiant heating and cooling, and high-efficiency heat-recovery chillers.

Water conservation is achieved through drought-tolerant native plantings, approximately 10,000 m2 of permeable paving, and a water reclamation system. Local concrete aggregates and weathered copper cladding echo the hues of the surrounding hills, while strategic plantings and retaining walls mitigate seasonal winds to ensure that the outdoor spaces remain usable year-round.

The result is a facility rooted in its landscape and community that blurs the boundaries between interior and exterior, academic and social, and safety and transparency.

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