Project Description
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PROJECT DESCRIPTION < ORACLE EDUCATIONAL FACITITY, REDWOOD CITY, CA Updated 04.07.2016 Oracle Education Foundation – Proposed Public High School PROJECT OVERVIEW The proposed project will be a partnership between Oracle, Oracle Education Foundation, and Design Tech High School. Oracle Oracle is a Fortune 100 corporation headquartered in Redwood Shores. Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center. Oracle Education Foundation Oracle Education Foundation (OEF) is a nonprofit organization funded by Oracle. It is a private foundation as defined in IRC Section 509(a). It engages Oracle employees as volunteer instructors, coaching high school students in multiday projects at the intersection of science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math (STEAM) disciplines. All OEF projects combine skill building with design challenges. Students learn coding and electrical engineering, and then apply these skills to problem solving. The problem-solving approach is Design Thinking, which promotes empathy with the user, creativity in generating solutions, the value of failure as necessary to learning and innovation, and rationality in fitting solutions to the context of the problem. OEF projects are fun and teach creative confidence, as well as persistence, resiliency, and grit. Many projects are designed to demystify the basic science underlying today's technologies and tomorrow's innovations. They use open hardware to introduce students to the most fundamental building blocks of engineering and show that technology is not magic—it’s accessible science that students can learn and use to author amazing, previously unimagined solutions. While inclusive, OEF's program pays particular attention to girls and other populations historically under-represented in STEAM careers. The Oracle Education Foundation is partnering deeply with Design Tech High School (d.tech), to implement, refine, and scale the program described here. In d.tech, we have found an extraordinary partner that shares our values around the importance of teaching innovation and design thinking, the power of diversity and inclusion, and the necessity of reinventing education. 399 Bradford Street Redwood City, California 94063 Tel 650-364-6453 Fax 650-364-2618 www.des-ae.com PROJECT DESCRIPTION < Page 2 of 9 We want to provide this exceptional school with a permanent home on the Oracle headquarters campus. Design Tech High School Design Tech High School is a California public high school currently authorized by the San Mateo Union High School District. Two principles guide the d.tech model: extreme personalization and putting knowledge into action. The school holds every student to the same high standards, but allows each student to move at his or her own pace to achieve those standards. Additionally, d.tech teaches students to solve real-world problems using a Design Thinking approach similar to that taught at Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). Together, these two approaches provide students with a problem-solving model they can use throughout their lives to make positive contributions to a constantly changing world. At present, d.tech leases space on the Mills High School campus for approximately 140 9th- grade students. The school is adding a grade per year and will be at full capacity, with around 550 student’s grades 9-12 and 30 full time employees, by the start of the 2017-2018 academic year. Our Collaboration Oracle Education Foundation will construct the new facility for d.tech on a currently undeveloped parcel on the Oracle Headquarter campus. The building will be approximately 64,000 SF in 2-stories with the associated site improvements and landscaping. Approximately 35 parking spaces will be provided for staff and visitors. Design considerations will include environmental sensitivities associated with the Belmont Slough, interface between the school and the Bay Trail, as well as adjacency to the larger Oracle campus for joint use of facilities such as the gym, convention center, and kitchen. PROJECT SITE, EXISTING CONDITIONS AND OWNERSHIP The project is located on a 4.81 acre portion (per TM plan set) of Oracle-owned property in Redwood Shores, just north of Oracle Parkway. An existing parking lot is currently located where the new Design Tech High School would be located. The remainder of the property is undeveloped – grassy fields with sporadic trees. The property is bounded to the north and west by Belmont Slough and on the south by Oracle Parkway. A power line runs roughly north south along the westerly border of the site. Oracle acquired the site in 1996 and completed the construction of the existing parking lot in 1999. Prior to this, the site was undeveloped except for landscape improvements along Oracle Parkway. DES Architects + Engineers, Inc. PROJECT DESCRIPTION < Page 3 of 9 The BCDC 100 feet shoreline band covers 2.5 acres of the project site and is approximately 1,200 feet in length. This area will be taken into account when designing new and replacement improvements. An existing bay trail (10’ wide) runs atop the levee along the Belmont Slough. It is part of the larger bay trail system at Oracle Campus and Redwood Shores area. This segment of the bay trail has three outdoor exercise stations and is connected to a vehicle turnout and sidewalk at Oracle Parkway. The vehicle turnout currently provides 14 parking spaces for bay trail users. SITE IMPROVEMENTS The site improvements include the above-grade and below-grade improvements necessary to serve and accommodate the new High School as well as the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) public access. Such improvements consist of and require grading, site access, new High School structure(s), utility services, and storm water management. ACCESS AND LAYOUT The site access is primarily from Oracle Parkway, which is an existing public road looping around the Oracle campus from two connections with Marine Parkway to the south. Oracle Parkway will allow for vehicular (standard, delivery, and emergency), bicycle, and pedestrian access to the High School. The High School project will comply with all jurisdictional requirements with respect to emergency vehicle access and ADA-compliant pathways. D.Tech school attracts students from San Francisco to the north, Sunnyvale to the south, Berkeley to the east and Half Moon Bay on the west. The wide area from which they draw encourages the use of public transportation and car pooling. We would expect families to continue to utilize these options at the new location. D.Tech has a flexible schedule, so they are able to adjust the bell schedule to accommodate the Caltrain schedule. For student drop-off we are proposing a drive-though lane at the new parking lot that will accommodate approximately 20 cars at a time (per TM plan set). This drop- off will be monitored by staff. Some older student will have concurrent enrollment at local community colleges as well as participation in internships. We will reserve a small number of parking spots for students participating in internships on a schedule where Caltrain is not an option. The school also proposes to purchase a van to transport students and staff to and from the Belmont Caltrain station around mid-day so that they can participate in concurrent college enrollment and internships. DES Architects + Engineers, Inc. PROJECT DESCRIPTION < Page 4 of 9 In addition, Oracle offers shuttle programs to a number of transportation hubs including Millbrae Caltrain/BART and the San Carlos and Hillsdale Caltrain Stations. The Bridgepark Shuttle and Clipper Shuttle also offer connections to the Belmont Caltrain Station. All of these shuttles will be available to students and staff. SITE GRADING Site grading will be necessary to maintain clearance from and/or replace area within the BCDC shoreline, provide the required finished floor elevations for anticipated sea level rise, conform to the existing Oracle Parkway grade, as well as meet ADA requirements. The BCDC shoreline (bayward side) is determined as the extent of fringing marsh lands beyond the mean high tide (6.45 NAVD88) and to an elevation of five feet above Mean Sea Level. This is elevation 8.37 on the NAVD88 datum. The anticipated sea level rise per BCDC is 12 inches by mid-century and 55 inches by end of century. The project is proposing to design to 2070 sea level rise assumptions of 36 inches. Setbacks, sloping, grade, and points of connection will all be taken into account as the High School program and access is determined. This project will not add any fill at the existing shoreline. PUBLIC ACCESS – DEDICATIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS The project will dedicate 28,600 sq. ft. of newly improved land as permanently-guaranteed public access. These areas are contiguous to existing public access. The school will also allow the public to use the parking lot and the patios on the slough-side of the building when it is not in operation, such as weekends and in the evenings. This amounts to an additional 44,800 sq. ft. of shared public access. The portion of the bay trail/levee adjacent to the project site will be raised to handle 36” sea- level rise at 2070. Approximately 1,200 linear feet of existing bay trail will be modified to 12’ wide - 2’ decomposed granite and 10’ asphalt. It will be designed to transition back to existing bay trails at the east and west ends of the project site. In addition to the trail widening, new landscape improvements and amenities are proposed to further enhance the public’s experience of the bay trail. The proposed amenities are summarized as below: 1. Three amenities nodes with distinctive themes - Educational, Picnic and Contemplative. Design features under consideration are informational signage, seating walls, benches, picnic tables, DG paving and landscaping. 2. Three exercise nodes and meandering pathways connecting the sidewalk at Oracle Parkway and the bay trail.