Canyon School – Suisman Urban Design

Canyon School’s new look complete

Campus renovation includes new color palette, historic photomurals, wayfinding signs, and graphic standards.

Santa Monica Canyon, September 2009–After several years of collaboration with the administration, faculty and parents of Canyon Charter School to develop a long-term vision for the school campus, Suisman Urban Design has completed its work on an extensive renovation of the school grounds and building exteriors. The makeover’s most visible feature is a vibrant new paint scheme that unifies the campus’s heteregenous buildings and integrates them with the exceptional natural setting. The new look also includes bold new signage for gates and classrooms, and an outdoor gallery of large-scale photomurals combining text and historic photographs of the school, which was founded in 1894. The renovation program has included new traffic safety banners and signage around the school’s perimeter, and an integrated graphic look for the school’s handbook and logo.

Doug Suisman discusses the past and future of historic Canyon School

Suisman Urban Design has been helping the administration, faculty and parents of Canyon Charter School develop a long-term vision for the school campus. The school, which was founded in 1894 and is the second oldest in Los Angeles, has been in its present Santa Monica Canyon location for nearly 100 years, although it has been reconfigured and expanded several times. Doug Suisman presented a visual history of the campus to a large school audience, and used the school’s long connections to its surrounding community and canyon setting to set the stage for visions of how the school might evolve in the next twenty to thirty years. A number of short-term improvements projects are now underway or in planning stages; longer-term projects may include reconfiguration of the entrance and administration building, and replacement or upgrading of the portable classrooms…