We've been wanting to write about Central LA Area High School #9 for months now since we first saw the designs from Austrian design firm Coop Himmelb(l)au. The futuristic design sure beats the crap factories we went to school in. CLAAHS#9 will have a special focus on the arts for grades 9-12 and will feature a 1,000 person auditorium and a cone shaped library called "The Space of Knowledge."
COOP HIMMELB(L)AU's design proposal envisions a heightened stage fly loft in form of a tower as symbol for the arts in the city, which on its top provides an event and exhibition space with a view across the entire city of LA. The tower's sculpture is completed with a spiral ramp in form of the #9 and two billboards, which together are sign and information interface for the school. The campus is marked by two "faces", the public face in form of a crystaline public lobby towards downtown, and the opposite community face, expressed through a representational school entrance via a grand open staircase. Inside the campus the library in form of a cone as "Space of Knowledge " is the focal point of the central courtyard. Circular windows give the otherwise very utilitarian school buildings a very distinct expression and in strategic positions reveal its inner life to the passer-by.
CLAAHS#9 is being constructed at 450 N. Grand just off of Sunset, north of the 101. The school is scheduled for takeoff opening Fall 2007. Bidibidibidi.
