For many years, Sherman Oaks School has been a closed school in a San Jose neighborhood populated largely by lower income and ethnically diverse residents. In reopening the school, the District wanted to create an environment that serves to substitute for the less-than-ideal family life that the neighborhood children frequently face. In other words, the vision is to make the school as homelike as possible.

Several buildings are demolished to make room for a cluster of 4 new “houses”. 3 of these houses are identical, each offering a family room, a kitchen and a backyard. The 4th house contains administrative offices, a teacher training center, and kindergarten classrooms. To further reinforce the idea of home, bathrooms are shared by children and adults, except that adults have a separate enclosed stall. Since flexibility is a key design goal, all major walls within each house are movable, allowing classrooms to open up to each other and to the family room in the middle. Instead of a centralized library, each classroom has a reading nook with its own collection. A lunch patio next to each house replaces the conventional cafeteria, equipped with outdoor sinks for student art and science projects.

Different color schemes are used for the exterior of each house to give individual identities. Playful forms are used for the buildings, with curved roof, angular protruding reading nooks and slanted doors.