tk1sc was brought on to provide mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering services on this renovation and expansion for St. Mary’s School, Orange County’s only independent preschool through grade 8international baccalaureate (IB) world school. The project added 50,000 square feet of classrooms, three science labs, an art wing, and a 4,000 square-foot teaching and foodservice kitchen.

The new Costa Mesa High School Performing Arts Center consists of a 25,000 square feet, 360 seat theater, black box, and performing arts classroom building. An iconic curvilinear screen wraps the front elevation and provides sun shading for a three-story glass lobby that opens toward the west. The new building also contains an orchestra pit, catwalks, student performance prep spaces, restrooms, support areas, theatrical rigging, theater lighting, and sound support systems. The new Costa Mesa High School Performing Arts Center serves as the School District’s main venue and accommodates various theater and drama productions. This project meets the LEED Silver rating.

This project consisted of retrofitting an existing 336,000 square foot four story office building into a DSA approved high school campus. The now 220,00 square foot hyper adaptable learning facility can service approximately 1,200 students and is home to three independently run public charter schools. The building was designed to support a flexible integration of project-base STEM curriculum. In order to support this, at the heart of each school are large common areas that can be programmed to accommodate everything from student project work and presentations, to group activities. A four-story atrium interconnects the three separate schools opening it up to a shared community space on the ground floor. tk1sc provided full-service MEP engineering design on this project.