Local architecture firm wins high honors

JK Architecture Engineering, an Auburn-headquartered firm, recently won four awards at a national conference for its work on a project designing a high school student union and administration complex in San Jose. The firm won Project of Merit, Best Educational Project, Best in Process and the Chairman's Award at the Design-Build Institute of America's National Conference for its work on the Yerba Buena High School Student Union and Administration building. The firm specializes in building K-12 and higher education buildings throughout Northern California. The project was the most awarded project at the November conference, which featured projects of all types and sizes from around the country. This was the first time the firm was recognized for a project on a national scale. The vision for the Yerba Buena High Student Union was to create a "paradigm shift" that unites students, staff and administrators in human centered environments that reshape the culture and create a hub for academic, social and community inspiration. "At the end of the day a building like that is about the school community and it needs to be a reflection of just that," said Derek Labrecque, lead architect. The 37,150-square-foot campus center was intended to leverage the existing facility assets and, through a transformation of a new construction addition, create open, transparent and flexible spaces that bring students, staff and administrators together to share cross cultural experiences. The central hub celebrates real world engagement through the coffee table, food service, dining, presentation, learning center, fitness commons, copy center, bank and small group spaces. The project, completed in 2018, created spaces that could be used for "safe, dynamic and relevant learning environments" that can be used before, during and after school. "One of the key pieces was blurring the design to create spaces that are flexible," Labrecque said. "The dining space was where we eat, but we can eat where we learn and learn where we eat." One of the reasons Labrecque said he thinks they were recognized was how their firm used creative thinking to help the school solve the problem of running out of construction funds. The school originally thought they would have to tear down their existing facilities to create the new student union. "We determined there was a way to save 60 percent of the building, leveraging the value of that structure," he said. "We upstructured so the final building was a bit of old and new but you couldn't tell." The project was completed in partnership with Roseville-based Flint Builders. The project also was named Project of the Year for the Western Pacific Region by the Design-Build Institute of America.