Ojai Valley School formally dedicated three new signature buildings at its high school campus in August, nearly four years after the Thomas Fire devastated the hilltop campus. The dedication took place during an outdoor ceremony of alumni, parents, students and faculty members and came just ahead of the opening of the 2021-2022 school year.
“So much has been achieved in such a relatively short period of time,” school President/CEO Michael J. Hall-Mounsey said at the dedication. “This not only demonstrates the OVS spirit, but it speaks to the generations of people who over the past 110 years have made this school great.”
The $16.5 million rebuilt Upper Campus includes three new permanent structures totaling 37,000 square feet: the Aramont Science and Technology Center, the Grace Hobson Smith House dormitory, and the Littlefield Student Commons dining and library complex.
The 2017 Thomas Fire destroyed two buildings, the girls dorm and the former science and technology center, on the Upper Campus site. The school’s desire to rebuild was immediate and administrators reached out quickly to Los Angeles architect Frederick Fisher to start the process. Fisher’s firm was originally contracted in 2015 to develop a master plan to chart a course for future growth at the school and had a solid understanding of the school’s architectural character as well as its academic and co-curricular programs.
“OVS showed great resilience in transforming the tragedy of the Thomas Fire into a reimagination of the Upper Campus,” said Fisher, Founding Partner and Design Principal of the project. “We reset from our previous planning with the OVS community and seized this rare ‘blank canvas’ opportunity to create a functionally and aesthetically unified state-of-the-art learning, living, and gathering village interwoven with the extraordinary landscape.”
The three new buildings respect the existing campus architecture while also forming a village of pavilions that connect learning, studying, and student living.
The single-story Aramont Science and Technology Center supports a growing science and technology curriculum with various classrooms and labs, as well as a maker space for advancing technology and a multipurpose room for the arts — all of which feature an integrated indoor-outdoor profile. The two-story Littlefield Student Commons comprises a dining hall, library, and student center, creating a space used for special events, and with a second-story library with views over the Ojai Valley.
The project also includes the rebuilt Grace Hobson Smith House dormitory for resident girls along with faculty apartments organized around its own central courtyard.
Together, the Upper Campus project is anticipated to achieve LEED Gold status through a combination of passive cooling design, photoelectric power generation and a lithium-ion battery energy storage system that will dramatically eliminate CO2 emissions and allow the campus to operate off-grid during normal operations.
The site has also been extensively fireproofed through the incorporation of flat roofs without eaves, plaster (stucco) finishes, enhanced sprinklers and improved site access, all of which are in accordance with Ventura County’s strictest guidelines for defensible landscaping.
On Saturday, August 21, the school formally dedicated the three signature buildings as well as the following dedicated areas:
Ordway Park
Boswell Hall
JB Close Jr. Memorial Library
Larry and Kathie Fisher Family Mezzanine
Lin Family Lab for Biology and Environmental Science
Black Family Foundation Makerspace
The McCarthey Family Multipurpose Room
Carol Burnett Media and Digital Arts Lab
Garrett Family Steps
Carl and Jody Cooper Oak Dining Terrace
Ordway Art Studio
Robert E. Chesley Physics Lab
Frances and Robert Ferguson Chemistry Lab
William H. Hair Meeting Room
“Let it be known that on Saturday, August 21st, 2021, these magnificent dorms, labs, classrooms and signature Student Commons were dedicated for the benefit of future generations of OVS students,” Hall-Mounsey said. “These magnificent new buildings will bridge the old with the new, respecting the scenic mountain vistas with high technology and sustainability.”
Photos by Logan Hall and Misty Hall. Darius Sabbaghzadeh contributed to this story.
