Education
Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte Elementary School
HVAC and BAS for a new LAUSD elementary school.
Client
Taisei Construction Corporation
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Service Line
Mechanical HVAC and building automation for a high-performance LAUSD elementary — CHPS-verified, Savings by Design, and 20% past Title 24.
Client: Los Angeles Unified School District
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Service Line: Mechanical HVAC & Building Automation
Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte Elementary School opened in 2012 as South Region Elementary School No. 10 and took its permanent name in 2014. LAUSD built it to relieve crowding in South Los Angeles — one of 131 new campuses in a decade-long, multi-billion-dollar program to end involuntary busing and return every school to a two-semester calendar. On a 3.96-acre lot at Vernon and Orchard, about half the land a California elementary usually gets, it fits 650 K-5 students drawn from nearby Menlo Avenue and West Vernon into a three-building, 58,000-square-foot campus: 26 classrooms, administrative offices, a library, a multi-purpose room, food service, play fields, and parking. Athena performed the mechanical HVAC and building automation.
“We coordinated the mechanical in 3D before anything went in, so it fit the building instead of fighting it.
On a tight site with six different exterior finishes and trades stacked on top of each other, coordination decided the schedule. The team worked from a shared Revit model, and we ran our mechanical through pre-construction 3D BIM coordination before anything went in, so ductwork and equipment fit the building instead of colliding with it. We installed unitary packaged equipment with VAV and commercial zoning, tied back to TAC controls over BACnet.
The payoff shows up room by room: every space has independent temperature control, and the building beats California’s Title 24 energy code by 20%. It carries both CHPS Verified status and LADWP Savings by Design certification — and efficient packaged equipment on zoned, responsive controls is a real part of how a school reaches those marks.
It’s one of several LAUSD campuses we’ve outfitted, alongside Sally Ride Elementary School.
Client: Los Angeles Unified School District. Architect: Dougherty + Dougherty Architects. Construction Manager: Cumming. General Contractor: Taisei Construction Corporation. Athena scope: mechanical HVAC and building automation with pre-construction 3D BIM coordination. Certifications: CHPS Verified; LADWP Savings by Design.
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