Live Oaks Career Campus

Milford, Ohio

Firm

MSA Architects

Client

Great Oaks Career Campuses

Area

188,900 sq.ft.

Total Cost

$32,700,000

Completion Date

03/2024

Tyler Gentry

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Design team
MOTZ Engineering (MEP Engineers); Julie Cromwell & Associates (Structural Engineer); Kleingers (Civil Engineer)

Live Oaks is a career technical campus built in 1971. This project set out to establish a strong identity and create a professional environment where students felt respected and their passion for a chosen career path could unfold with discovery and wonder.

The existing facility was unwelcoming; it had a receding, dark entry that posed a security risk with no barrier into the school’s circulation and broken sight lines for student supervision.

The new entry clarifies the entrance with a secure sequence that stops guests at reception before going farther into the building; it creates a welcoming environment that reveals a new perspective from each changing vantage point while maintaining important sight lines. The entry lobby is an asymmetrical high/low combined, expansive volume that creates a varied experience leading visitors into the central “commons.” The second level holds all the core curriculum, and the first floor branches into differing “academies” for each field of study. New gathering nodes are dotted throughout the school: the collaborative stair in the commons, bench seating, and lounge spaces scattered along circulation paths.