Texas ASLA honors LPA’s designs of eSTEM Academy, TVT Community Day School
The Texas Association of Landscape Architects (ASLA) recently honored LPA’s designs of Eastvale STEM Academy (eSTEM) in Eastvale, California and Tarbut v’Torah (TVT) Community Day School in Irvine, California with awards of merit for excellence in landscape design.
Texas ASLA’s mission is to promote the profession of landscape architecture and advance the practice through advocacy, education, communication, and fellowship. The projects were honored at the organization’s April 20 awards ceremony during its 2022 annual conference.
K-12 Schools Win Texas Landscape Awards
eSTEM Academy is a three-story campus with learning environments designed to prepare students for work in the real world. LPA designed the school around an open courtyard, with a multi-layered series of connected colabs and flexible indoor-outdoor learning spaces that promote creative thinking. The outdoor spaces support a variety of teaching and learning modalities, as well as opportunities for socializing and relaxation.
“Nice continuity and creativity,” Texas ASLA judges noted. “The landscape architect has succeeded in creating a great structure for this garden to grow into.”
The TVT Community Day School is a focused educational environment rooted in Jewish values that promotes interactive learning in both the indoor and outdoor spaces. The school embraces a landscape of innovation while marrying two goals: using the outdoors as a seamless extension of the learning spaces and proudly sharing the religious values that deeply align with the educational objectives.
“Very thoughtful project with sustainability and cultural significance,” jurors said. “Seems like a great place to go to school. Everything fits together materially.”
Both campuses are products of LPA’s integrated design approach, which includes landscape architects at the earliest stages of the research-driven process. Guided by the larger educational goals, the landscape designs were developed in collaboration with architects, engineers, educators and students.
“Our work on both schools focused on finding ways to connect the existing campus to the new while providing additive learning and teaching opportunities for students and teachers,” said LPA director of landscape Kari Kikuta.
