New Cutting-Edge Exploration Building and Gold Gymnasium

Get an exclusive sneak peek! Witness the remarkable progress of Santa Monica High School's upcoming Exploration Building and Gold Gymnasium through stunning drone footage. Anticipated opening summer 2024.

Community members attending Samohi's Parent Teacher Student Association-sponsored Community Meeting on October 24, 2023.

View Samohi's Revisited Campus Plan, Oct. 24, 2023

View Samohi PTSA English Building, Oct. 24, 2023

Phase 3 Exploration Building and Gold Gym Update

Updated three dimensional images of the Phase 3 Exploration Building and Gold Gym.

Construction is scheduled to begin in late spring 2022.

The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) invited Santa Monica High School (Samohi) students, staff and parents to be a part of a major milestone in the evolution of phase three of the Samohi Campus Plan. A steel topping out ceremony was held on Monday, May 8, 2023.

This project was funded by Measure SMS, overwhelmingly approved by Santa Monica voters in 2018. Construction for phase three is estimated to cost $120 million. Moore Ruble Yudell Architects and Planners are the design architects, HED are the executive architects and McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. is the builder on this project.

View Samohi's Topping Out Ceremony photo/video slideshow here: https://youtu.be/XFSNvfpcCac.

Samohi Celebrates the Groundbreaking of the Exploration Building and Gold Gymnasium

The Santa Monica High School (Samohi) campus continues to improve and evolve. A community groundbreaking ceremony took place on Aug. 29, 2022 for the Exploration building and Gold gymnasium. The SMMUSD Board of Education, Superintendent Dr. Ben Drati, Samohi Principal Marae Cruce, SMMUSD and Samohi staff, local elected officials, community members, students and building partners attended the celebration.

Watch the groundbreaking ceremony here: https://bit.ly/SamohiGroundbreaking2022.

Video: Santa Monica High School - The new Discovery Building

Video: Discover the Samohi Discovery Building, 9/2021

Updated Renderings of Samohi Phase Three Exploration Building and Gold Gym

The architects have continued to refine the design for these two buildings based on user input and value engineering.

Here are the most recent looks of the next phase:

Campus Phase 3 Design Community Meeting 

The district held a webinar on Oct. 13 during which students, parents and community members saw an update on the design process for new classroom and gym buildings at Santa Monica High School.

Zoom meeting: See the replay that includes Q&A from the public.
See a PDF of the presentation that was discussed: View or download the presentation.

Discovery Building at Santa Monica High School by Moore Ruble Yudell and HED

The Samohi Discovery Building featured in the January 1, 2022 edition of Architectural Record
According to some predictions, 65 percent of preschoolers today will hold jobs that do not yet exist. Whether such statistical forecasts are precisely accurate, it’s undeniable that technology and pedagogical approaches are in flux, challenging age-old models for classrooms with tidy rows of students facing a teacher in front. Ideas that learning can happen more effectively in other ways—with, for example, less formal clusters, in self-paced and interactive modes—have increasingly permeated the mainstream.  Read More >

Samohi Facilities Update - Fall 2021

Building Futures / Futuros de los Edificios

Building Futures Archives
Building Futures Winter 2021
Building Futures Fall 2020
Building Futures Spring 2019
Building Futures Spring 2018
Construyendo Futuros Primavera 2018

Discovery Building Project
Notice of Availability of Draft EIR
Discovery Building Draft EIR