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Before Bora Architects could refine the design for a new middle school, it had to find suitable land to accommodate it. The firm studied about a dozen locations before they discovered an old publishing warehouse in an industrial park 鈥� it was the right site.

鈥淚t happened to be a spectacular site on the canyon,鈥� said Chris Linn, a Bora Architects partner. 鈥淎nd they saw a synergy with their school program focused on sustainability and nature.鈥�

The new Crystal Springs Uplands Middle School is now being built on a cliff overlooking Water Dog Lake Park in Belmont, California. The site is about a 10-minute drive from the original high school campus in Hillsborough, California. The college prep school for grades 6-12 had become overcrowded, and had no room for expansion.

The high school will remain in the Uplands Mansion, which was designed by Willis Polk for the Crocker family in 1917 and later donated to the school. An ornate ballroom in the middle of the mansion provides space for students to gather for daily morning assemblies, Linn said. A similar space, the great hall, will be included in the new middle school. That space in the central Academic Center will have two floors of classrooms on each side, an art studio, three science labs and a media center. The Academic Center will be surrounded by a freestanding gym, a multipurpose building able to serve as a cafeteria and a storage structure.

The buildings will fan out to allow views of the lake below, Linn said.

鈥淣o matter where you are you can see between the fingers of the buildings,鈥� he said.

With a strong connection to Silicon Valley, the school will be very high tech, Linn said. All students will have iPads, and flat-screen monitors will be 鈥渆verywhere in the building,鈥� he added. The library will have fewer books than usual, he said, because so many are e-textbooks.

鈥淭he monitors are used for instruction and some rooms have two or three,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey have totally taken the place of blackboard, and most rooms have floor-to-ceiling white board on the walls.鈥�

The palette for the new school will be 鈥渞estrained and timeless,鈥� Linn said, with exposed steel on the interior and exterior cedar cladding along with areas of concrete and large expanses of glass.

Stormwater will be treated on site through landscaping, Linn said. The new school will feature rooftop solar panels and radiant heating in floors.

鈥淚t will have a lot of natural ventilation and a tremendous amount of natural daylight,鈥� he said.

Construction of the 48,000-square-foot project began about two months ago, Linn said, and completion is due by July 2017. But planning began several years ago.

Several factors contributed to the delay. First, the search for buildable land in the San Francisco Bay Area took a couple of years. And by the time a suitable piece of property was located, construction costs had escalated so much that the Crystal Springs Uplands School had to launch another fundraising effort. On top of that, the effort to rezone the industrial land was slow.

鈥淚t took a long time to find land and took a long time to get it rezoned, plus several years of public hearings,鈥� Linn said. 鈥淪o here we are in 2016 after six years of planning, public hearing and zone changes to get this under construction.鈥�

Crystal Springs Uplands Middle School

Location: Belmont, California

Construction start: July 2016

Anticipated construction completion: July 2017

Owner and developer: Crystal Springs Uplands School

Architect: Bora Architects

General contractor: Turner Construction Co. (Sacramento, California)

Electrical engineer: Sprig Electric (San Jose, California)

Mechanical engineer: Therma Corp. (San Jose)

Structural engineer: Tipping Structural Engineers (Berkeley, California)

Landscape architect: Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture (San Francisco)

Commissioning: Integral Group (Oakland, California)

Design Beyond Borders is a 91视频 feature offering a look at the projects outside of Oregon being tackled by local architecture firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact 91视频 architecture and engineering reporter Beverly Corbell at 503-802-7224 or [email protected].