10:30 AM – 4:00 PM
Tours are first come, first served and are limited to 52 people each.
You will not be allowed to drive to the school on your own, only those on the provided transportation will be allowed on campus.
AGENDA
10:30 AM – Depart Hotel
10:55 AM – Arrive at Northside
12:00 PM – Lunch
1:30 PM – Depart Northside
2:00 PM – Arrive at Sonia Sotomayor
3:30 PM – Depart Sonia Sotomayor
4:00 PM – Arrive at Hotel
 | 4 LU |
The Northside ISD Construction Careers Academy was first created to fill a need for the community and for students who are interested in construction trades, some who could immediately enter the workforce in lieu of pursuing a college degree. The two-story building is 42,129 SF and was built on the campus of Earl Warren High School, adjacent to the seventeen-classroom addition. The facility includes instructional classrooms as well as a Building Trades Shop, Electrical Trades Shop, HVAC Shop, Pipe Fitting Shop and an AutoCAD workroom. This program allows students to earn industry recognized credentials (such as OSHA-10, NCCER CORE, NCCER Level 1 and 2, AutoCAD, Revit, Surveying, and Equipment/Tool Certificates) college credit through St. Phillips College, and connects them to job opportunities through internships and job shadowing programs. During construction, students have the unique opportunity of learning from the construction of their own projects, regularly engaging in site tours and presentations from the construction management team and various trades during key moments in construction. Now, students utilize the space to get real life experience and even complete projects as large as tiny homes which are sold in auctions. Upon graduation, students are prepared to enter the workforce immediately or further education by going on to colleges and universities in order to further their education in the construction industry.
Learning Objectives:
Sonia Sotomayor High School is a new, 430,000 sf comprehensive high school for the Northside Independent School District. The project was designed to facilitate new education and curriculum practices, provide the utmost in security needs, and integrate the district standards to ensure parity across Northside’s 12 other comprehensive high schools. The project is sited to address two site access points, creating a clear main entry while also enveloping two rear courtyards for both casual and classroom functions. The building is anchored by an athletic area comprised of two gyms with dressing facilities on one side, and a 900-seat auditorium with full fly loft and orchestra pit on the other. Included in the program are performing and fine arts spaces, science classrooms, cafeteria, library and career technology facilities including culinary arts, health careers, and the district’s first alternative energy program. The building was constructed to be mindful of durability while integrating lighter construction methods at upper classroom floors, both for cost effectiveness as well as to compress the construction schedule. While keeping the districts’ standard masonry veneer and preferred single building campus approach, Sonia Sotomayor HS has integrated color, texture, and pattern in ways to enliven the spaces, highlight curriculum, and foster the next generation of learners.
Learning Objectives:
9:00 AM – 4:15 PM
Tours are first come, first served and are limited to 52 people each.
You will not be allowed to drive to the school on your own, only those on the provided transportation will be allowed on campus.
AGENDA
9:00 AM – Depart Hotel
9:15 AM – Arrive at Zoo School
10:30 AM – Depart Zoo School
10:45 AM – Arrive at Central Catholic
12:00 PM – Lunch
1:30 PM – Depart Central Catholic
2:00 PM – Arrive at Witte Museum
4:00 PM – Depart Witte Museum
4:15 PM – Arrive at Hotel
| 4 LU |
The San Antonio Zoo School is the largest nature based pre-school in the country. To expand its educational mission, the Zoo developed a new on-site preschool facility and adjacent grounds to accommodate up to 160 students ages 3 to 5. The design includes renovation of an existing 20,000 sq. ft. building while new classroom environments support a nature-based curriculum with nearly half of the teaching spaces integrated into the surrounding landscape. Blurring the division between indoor and outdoor, the building leverages the environment as another “teacher” by reinforcing students’ connection to the natural environment. The school has a direct connection to the greater teaching environment of the Zoo and helps reinforce the Zoo’s conservation mission for future generations. In addition, zoological exhibits are tightly integrated with the new building and landscape, seamlessly blending play, learning and adventure.
Learning Objectives:
Central Catholic High School, is a Catholic, all-male, non-boarding college preparatory school located in the River North District of Downtown San Antonio, Texas, in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio. The CCHS Convocation Center opened in July of 2019 as an expansion to the existing historical campus. The new facility includes a new 150-seat chapel an outdoor meditation and prayer garden and a gym with a competition-sized basketball court as well as new weight and locker rooms.
In addition to strengthening the Catholic School's presence and commitment to faith, the additional programs provide students with modern facilities to help prepare them for college. LPA also worked with CCHS to develop a Global Innovation Center in the existing historic building. This renovation takes advantage of flexible furniture and technologies to give students unique learning opportunities.
Learning Objectives:
Located in Brackenridge Park on the banks of the San Antonio River, the Witte Museum has served as a destination for learning about the people, plants and animals of South Texas since the late 1920s. Updating its campus from the 1970s-styled design, the Witte Museum had the unique opportunity to take advantage of its site set within a vibrant urban park and major urban corridor. The Phase II master plan and design for the Witte’s transformation unites a site filled with disparately functioning buildings into a campus with one identity, while still respecting the site’s historic elements.
The museum’s new facilities support a more interactive learning environment. Dioramas are in highly accessible areas and artifacts appear at all heights to encourage engagement for all ages. Daylight floods open areas through windows and clerestories – visually connecting visitors to the outdoors and allowing them to feel the light change throughout the day. Each gallery is equipped with an associated learning lab that supports extended hands-on learning. Screened porches provide protective environments in which to engage learners within the context of the site.
Learning Objectives:
9:00 AM – 5:15 PM
Tours are first come, first served and are limited to 52 people each.
You will not be allowed to drive to the school on your own, only those on the provided transportation will be allowed on campus.
AGENDA
9:00 AM – Depart Hotel
9:30 AM – Arrive at UTSA
11:30 AM – Depart UTSA
11:30 AM – Lunch
1:15 PM – Arrive at Northside Sports
3:00 PM – Depart Northside Sports
3:30 PM – Arrive at Madison
4:45 PM – Depart Madison
5:15 PM – Arrive at Hotel
| 4 LU |
This 148,000 sf, four-story structure is the first building in a new Quadrangle identified on the University’s Master Plan.
Committed to offering state of the art spaces for STEM education and research with a stronger focus on collaboration, the University of Texas at San Antonio needed to add additional instructional and research laboratory space to support Chemical Engineering, Biology, Chemistry and the Brain Health Initiative.
To meet the school’s strategic goals and immediate needs for additional space, this new building includes active learning classrooms, faculty offices and instructional laboratories for Biology, Chemistry and Engineering. Research laboratories are dedicated to Chemical Engineering and the Brain Health Initiative. A project maker space for Engineering senior design courses is housed in the building along with support spaces such as a café, student lounge, collaboration spaces, conference rooms and office spaces. The Science and Engineering Building reinforces UTSA’s
commitment to fostering a vibrant research culture and serving society through creativity, expanded research and innovation. The new facility is a transformative
showcase for the campus.
Located in the Northside Independent School District Hardin Athletic Complex, in San
Antonio, Texas, the Northside Sports Gym is a premier gymnasium/multi-purpose education facility and part of a complete athletics complex of facilities serving 13 high schools and the community of San Antonio. This 2500 seat arena incorporates the "open design" concept for visibility to enhance the experience of the players, coaches and spectators.
During the facility tour, you will see the integration of the gymnasium, athletic department
offices, community meeting space and technology serving athletic competition and facilitating the arena as large format education space. You will hear the presenters discuss the challenges and benefits derived by the building site location, orientation, plan layout and the inclusion of support spaces that serve not only the Sports Gym but the entire Hardin Athletics Complex.
Learning Objectives:
The North East Agriscience Magnet Program Facility is actually a replacement facility for the program’s previous structures. It is located on 23 acres adjacent to James Madison High School. This new LEED Gold and CHPS certified facility, home to the James Madison Chapter of the FFA, includes a two story Instructional building, six livestock project centers, a veterinarian assistant training clinic, machine shops, aquaculture laboratory, horticulture laboratory including a green roof and support classrooms. It also features a general store where students sell products that have been prepared on site, including compost, produce and meat products, and a show arena.
The design/construction team faced several challenges on its way to successfully completing the project. These challenges included a year round occupied school campus, a site that included a residence with specific needs related to schedule and access, the presence of animals on site that needed to be continuously housed, the presence of its care takers, and the presence of a special needs group that needed regular access to site. The safety and health of the student as they visited the animals was the most critical concern for which the team had to be prepared. The team worked collaboratively with the program’s staff to ensure the safety of all students, visitors and animals throughout the course of the project.
9:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Tours are first come, first served and are limited to 52 people each.
You will not be allowed to drive to the school on your own, only those on the provided transportation will be allowed on campus.
AGENDA
9:00 AM – Depart Hotel
9:30 AM – Arrive at Peiper
11:30 AM – Depart Peiper
11:30 AM – Lunch
1:30 PM – Arrive at Cybersecurity
2:45 PM – Depart Cybersecurity
3:00 PM – Arrive at Sunshine Cottage
4:15 PM – Depart Sunshine Cottage
4:30 PM – Arrive at Hotel
| 4 LU |
Pieper High School in Comal ISD is a 2500 student campus, sharing a site with Pieper Ranch Middle School. Preserving the natural topography of the location allowed a natural stair-stepped campus, making the profile an attractive addition to the natural scenery. The interior configuration has multiple collaboration spaces, while the open campus design includes unobtrusive security configurations to address safety requirements. The 9000 seat stadium, field house, tennis courts, and parking were all integrated into the landscape to preserve as many trees as possible. A real desire to celebrate and display CTE programs pushed those spaces into the circulation center of the school. This tour will focus on the high school, but attention will also be given to how this campus was master planned from conceptualization with the adjacent middle school, and while the middle school was built first, those master planning concepts were fundamental to ensuring that both projects maximized tax payer dollars to the greatest extent possible.
Learning Objectives:
The hands-on, interactive North East ISD Institute for Cybersecurity and Innovation (iCSI) houses up to 150 students each year from every NEISD high school across the district for two periods every day to offer STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) opportunities to students.
A former vacant Walmart Neighborhood Market was purchased with 2015 Bond Program Global Contingency Funds and renovated to include state-of-the-art network security, robotics and technology resources with a future planned robotics competition arena that seats 700.
iCSI, which opened its doors in the fall of 2021, uses real-world problem-solving scenarios to train students in cybersecurity and networking. The program offers up to six industry certifications that help prepare students to enter the workforce straight out of high school. Classrooms resemble state-of-the-art security operations centers, and the campus contains two networking labs, along with a 10,000-squarefoot multipurpose arena. The facility, which makes use of modular walls, is designed to adapt to the needs of the industry.
Learning Objectives:
Founded in 1947, the Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children is a private auditory/oral school. Children in grades K-5 learn in an environment in which every design decision was considered for its impact on their ability to hear. The campus includes five buildings: an administrative building, two early childhood buildings, one elementary building and a parent/infant building (for children up to 3 years old). The facilities include a total of 20 classrooms, a dedicated music and art room, a gymnasium with a full-size basketball court, an occupational therapy room for speech therapists, and three age-appropriate playgrounds. The campus includes kitchen space as well as science labs for the elementary and early childhood wings, an amphitheater, outdoor classrooms, a nature trail and playing fields, creating a tactile and engaging environment for learning.
Children with impaired hearing concentrate a huge amount of mental energy on listening. To make learning easier for them, the architects’ primary objective was to increase the environment’s signal-to-noise ratio—in other words, to amplify sounds that mean something (signals), and to eliminate those that don’t (noise). Strategies included siting the building to minimize traffic noise, designing an acoustically tight building envelope, locating mechanical rooms so that they don’t introduce ambient noise into the occupied spaces, and designing the HVAC system with large ducts so that the air would move slowly and quietly inside them. The resulting quiet makes us understand how valuable a great acoustical environment is to everyone.
Learning Objectives:
9:00 AM – 4:45 PM
Tours are first come, first served and are limited to 52 people each.
You will not be allowed to drive to the school on your own, only those on the provided transportation will be allowed on campus.
AGENDA
9:00 AM – Depart Hotel
9:30 AM – Arrive at Natatorium
11:30 AM – Depart Natatorium
11:45 AM – Lunch
1:30 PM – Arrive at Legacy/Reznik
2:45 PM – Depart Legacy/Reznik
3:00 PM – Arrive at TAMU
4:15 PM – Depart TAMU
4:45 PM – Arrive at Hotel
| 4 LU |
The 35,000 square foot aquatics center, which is the only public school natatorium south of Highway 90, will provide SWISD students with opportunities for swimming instruction and competitions. The $24 million facility came to fruition after voters approved the project during the 2018 bond election, with the city contributing $4 million.
Incorporating the latest pool technology, this naturally ventilated natatorium is a full-service community and athletic swimming and diving facility. With a 50-meter pool capable of multiple configurations and a second 4-lane instructional pool, the program offerings include swimming lessons for our younger students, community swim, and athletic competitions. The Natatorium will be the home to the District aquatic programs for all grade levels, and the new home of the District Athletics Administration. The new state-of-the-art facility includes varsity locker rooms, a strength weight room, and a multi-purpose classroom to develop swimming, diving and water polo athletes.
This unique facility uses open-air ventilation and extensive natural light to reduce energy consumption. The pool tanks are constructed of the Myrtha pre-manufactured walls and pool liner to create a crystal clear, fast pool. Spectator seating accommodates 720 upper-level seats with additional seating available on the pool decks. Enhanced video technology will be utilized for swimming, diving and aquatic team events scoring and video playback, as well as special events display.
Learning Objectives:
This tour will consist of walk-throughs of Southwest ISD's 2nd comprehensive High School and 4th comprehensive Middle School. Discussions will center around the processes and collaboration that the District employed when embarking on the vision for their 2nd high school in the district. Also to be discussed will be the various cost-savings concepts and ideas that were fundamental to the design of 2 campuses on 1 site.
Learning Objectives:
9:00 AM – 3:00 PM
This tour does not have a capacity.
AGENDA
9:00 AM – Depart Hotel
9:45 AM – Arrive at Hemisphere (Walking)
10:30 AM – Depart Hemisphere
10:45 AM – Arrive at Yanaguana (Walking)
11:45 AM – Lunch
1:30 PM – Arrive at Breckenridge HS
3:00 PM – Depart Breckenridge
3:00-5:00 PM – Walking Tour of King William (Optional)
9:00 AM – 5:15 PM
Tours are first come, first served and are limited to 52 people each.
You will not be allowed to drive to the school on your own, only those on the provided transportation will be allowed on campus.
AGENDA
9:00 AM – Depart Hotel
9:30 AM – Arrive at Anne Frank
11:00 AM – Depart Anne Frank
12:00 PM – Lunch at Alamo Heights
1:15 PM – Tour Alamo Heights
4:00 PM – Deep Dive Conversation
5:15 PM – Arrive at Hotel
| 4 LU |
Anne Frank Inspire Academy (AFIA) is an internationally recognized school whose facilities design matches their three-pronged educational approach:
Belong: The heart of AFIA’s work is rooted in the knowledge that children learn best when they are actively engaged with big ideas, rich materials, and a supportive social community. Having a school where children feel like they genuinely belong empowers them to learn and thrive.
Find Joy: AFIA’s daily goal is to bring joy to learning by inspiring children to be curious about the world. AFIA’s learning space is a place where a child’s innate curiosity is nurtured and guided by masterful educators teaching how to think—not what to think.
Be Great: AFIA believes that all children should have access to an exceptional education regardless of social class or income. Each child will increase their capacity for greatness by building social, emotional, and cognitive skills essential for success in school and life.
The school tour will be led by students and will conclude with a Q&A session with Head of School Justin Johnston and Prakash Nair, the visionary architect behind AFIA’s unique student-centered design concept.
For the Alamo Heights Tour, LPA will be leading the tour through three different buildings at the High School – 6900 Broadway, San Antonio, TX 78209.
The new Alamo Heights High School STEM facility shines much-needed light on the school’s trailblazing program – literally. Previously housed in the basement of an academic building, designing and building award-winning rockets was becoming difficult, crowded, and quite popular. To support the burgeoning program, and designed in close collaboration with the school’s teachers and administrators, the new STEM building includes a specialty rocketry lab, specialty support spaces, maker spaces/collaborative areas, STEM classrooms, and teacher prep areas. It also includes extensive glazing – to let the light in and put the rocket building, STEM projects, and student camaraderie on display.
