From Corporate to Classrooms

Two vacant office buildings in Austin were turned into a vibrant campus to support the academic, social and community goals of a growing K-12 international school.

After years of leasing space in a former strip mall, Magellan International School was ready for its forever home.

“We were not very comfortable,” says Scott Hibbard, Head of School for Magellan, which offers a Spanish-immersive International Baccalaureate program for preschool to 12th grade students. “We had one multipurpose room that was also our cafeteria, assembly space and event space. It was in the middle of our space, and oftentimes, events held there would distract the surrounding classes.”

School leaders explored several options before purchasing a suburban 14-acre commercial office property in north Austin. Over the next year, designers, engineers and landscape architects worked with Magellan educators to transform the two traditional two-story, 44,000-square-foot office buildings into a vibrant education center that would reflect the school’s programs and support its future growth.

Delivered on a tight budget, the new campus features separate primary and secondary schools, each with collaboration hubs, a dedicated innovation lab, music room and art room. The schools share a multipurpose room and 2,500-square-foot bilingual library. Parking spaces were converted into an array of active outdoor spaces, including a fenced playscape, an athletic field and sports court, an outdoor classroom and an amphitheater.

“People sometimes say building from the ground up is easier,” Hibbard says. “But we had two buildings in fairly good condition and a strong design team in place to guide us through the process of turning them into our schools.”

THE OFFICE CHALLENGE

Commercial real estate can offer viable opportunities for schools. The shared core and utility infrastructure often can be readily repurposed for learning environments, and perimeter window walls reserved for classrooms. In addition, preserving existing buildings can dramatically reduce a project’s carbon footprint.

However, turning sterile office floor plans into cohesive learning environments takes diligence and imagination. School facilities must meet stricter codes and regulations. For example, outdoor air circulation requirements for modern K-12 schools exceed those required for office buildings — and particularly those constructed in the 1990s, as in Magellan’s case. Schools also require designated drop-off/pick-up areas, security measures and a mix of specialized classroom infrastructure and group settings typically not found in office environments.

“The conversion requires a much different approach than an office renovation,” says LPA Project Designer Michelyn Smith. “Schools have very specific requirements and deliverables that must be considered.”

Magellan’s curriculum is built around collaboration and bringing students together in different ways to “prepare the next generation of innovative, globally minded, culturally curious students.” The new campus would need all the amenities of a modern campus, including specialized environments, such as maker spaces, a wellness studio and science laboratories.

The LPA design team encouraged the Magellan community of educators to guide the project’s visioning sessions.

“We talked about what their spaces could be, rather than coming with a preconceived notion of ‘This is what your current facility is like, and this is what your future facility will be,’” Smith says. The school’s co-authorship resulted in early buy-in for design decisions, allowing LPA to issue construction drawings in only nine weeks.

To preserve budget funds for learning spaces, LPA salvaged relatively new interior finishes, including the carpet and acoustic ceiling tiles. Instead of overhauling the HVAC systems, LPA engineers worked with a design-build contractor to reuse mechanical equipment and add exterior louvers to the building shells with minimal disruption to the structural systems.

“We made many small moves to make student learning spaces the focus,” Smith says. “Maintaining the existing core infrastructure limited the proportion of the classrooms ringing it, but all classrooms have great natural daylight and views to the surrounding landscape.”

Despite the constraint of working with existing floor plates, LPA fit music and art rooms and an innovation lab, or maker space, into each building, as well as a dozen student collaboration hubs and flexible learning spaces. A multipurpose room located in the secondary school is shared among the grades, and, unlike in the prior location, it can host a variety of active events without distracting classes in session.

Bright corridors painted in rich, saturated colors help students navigate easily between classrooms. Communal spaces weave seamlessly throughout the primary school and become more formalized in the secondary school to support differences in collaborative learning.

Figuring out vehicular traffic flows proved more challenging, but after several studies, the design team created a drive lane and plaza walkway between the schools that enable safe and efficient circulation. The former corporate setting now hosts an abundance of outdoor play areas, and the campus connects directly to the surrounding woods and nature trails. A giant wooden ship play structure, referencing the school’s Navigator mascot, rises among the verdant landscape.

HIGH PERFORMANCE MARKS

Today, Magellan students and staff take pride in their new campus, which opened in fall 2023. Teachers praise the classrooms’ expansive windows and verdant views, which provide a calming effect for their pupils. “Everyone loves having more space and dedicated spaces for different uses,” Hibbard says.

The campus has also become an invaluable recruitment tool. Prospective students spend a half day on site, and the new facilities help sell the experience of enrolling at Magellan and staying through high school graduation.

“Now our facilities match the quality of our teachers and our programs,” Hibbard says. “Being on the campus just feels great. It’s our forever home.”

Universities driven by a growing commitment to fiscal and environmental responsibility are embracing office buildings as vehicles to expand their offerings and reach more students. This shift reflects a strategic effort to make smarter use of existing resources while minimizing environmental impact. Two recent examples highlight designers finding innovative approaches to turn aging office buildings into lively, healthy university environments that fulfill multiple roles.

Palomar College South Education Center

Rancho Bernardo, California

A four-story, 110,000-square-foot office building was transformed into a new satellite campus, with student services, food court, classrooms and a top-floor library. Three transparent stairwells provide dramatic, light-filled active space. Structural engineers efficiently addressed the additional stress loads and the higher seismic code requirements, while interior designers organized the program spaces to develop cohesive learning environments and bring the “vertical campus” to life.

The Campus Center at Rinker

Irvine, California

Designers worked with Chapman University educators to turn a nondescript, 45,000-square-foot 1980s-era building into a thriving center of campus life, with food, retail and wellness services specifically designed to support graduate students. The design saves the bones of the original building, while completely re-imagining and adapting it for the university’s changing needs and accenting spectacular mountain views and a new array of outdoor spaces.