Changemakers Academy

Tilt-Up Reimagined

client

Caliber Public Schools
location

Vallejo, CA
size

65,300 SF

The award-winning Changemakers Academy for Caliber Public Schools establishes a vibrant, community-focused, and socially responsible new K-8 campus in Vallejo, designed to shift students’ experiences, expectations, and outcomes in historically underserved communities. Leveraging tilt-up construction, the two-story complex balances functionality and vibrancy, with flexible classrooms, breakout spaces, and a central courtyard that reflects the energy and identity of its diverse community.

Built for Connection

Students run and play in an outdoor courtyard alongside the colorful two-story school building.

Students and staff gather in the Changemakers Academy lobby, featuring wood slat ceilings and a welcoming reception desk.

Teacher leads a lesson while students sit at tables inside a classroom, viewed through a large interior glass window from the hallway.

Teacher walks among students seated at grouped desks in a bright classroom designed for collaborative learning.

The new campus is designed to support a curriculum distinguished by a longer school day, individualized learning plans, project-based learning, collaborative teaching, daily writing blocks, and coding/computational fluency.

Students and a parent exit Changemakers Academy beneath a shaded canopy at the main entrance.

Students walk along an open-air balcony overlooking the colorful central courtyard.

A fundamental way that architecture can be socially responsible is in the careful stewardship of the client’s resources. This imaginative use of tilt-up construction does just that.

AIASF Design Awards Jury Comment

Turning Constraints into Opportunities

To meet a modest budget, the design team opted for a tilt-up concrete structure, configured around a central interior courtyard, with two separate outdoor play areas for lower and upper grades. The team maximized the structure’s creative potential through thoughtful proportion, rhythmic window patterns, and a semi-transparent two-story “box,” that transformed a utilitarian building type into a resilient, cost-effective model with scale, identity, and a sense of uplift for the school community.

People paint a colorful geometric mural on the courtyard floor of a two-story school building with open-air walkways.

Students sit and socialize on colorful stepped amphitheater seating in the central courtyard of Changemakers Academy.

A Courtyard Built By Community

At the heart of campus, the central courtyard serves as both a social anchor and a dynamic learning environment. Collaborating with Project Color Corps, TEF engaged students, families, and staff in a large-scale mural project, culminating in a “paint day” that brought hundreds of community members together. This hands-on process fostered ownership, connection, and empowerment while enlivening the architecture. Daylight, natural ventilation, and two separate play yards support age-appropriate learning and play, while a grand staircase doubles as amphitheater seating for gatherings and performances. Bold patterns, vivid colors, and environmental graphics animate the space, turning the structure into a vibrant, expressive symbol of the school community and its mission.

Students sit and talk in a light-filled entry space with flexible seating and a large overhead door opening to the outdoors.

Students work together at tables in a flexible learning commons adjacent to classrooms.

Students gather in a large multipurpose space with high ceilings and abundant natural light.

Flexible Spaces for Diverse Learning

The campus is designed to accommodate a wide range of learning styles and activities. Lower-grade classrooms on the first floor include K/1 and 2/3 learning suites, along with administrative offices, a servery, and a multipurpose room. Upper-grade classrooms occupy the second floor, featuring adjacent, acoustically separate seminar rooms and breakout areas surrounded by open, adaptable classroom spaces. This configuration supports individualized learning, project-based curricula, and collaborative teaching, allowing multiple activities to happen simultaneously