Pali High South

When wildfires swept through Los Angeles in January 2025, they forced over 180,000 residents from their homes and left Palisades Charter High School — a cornerstone of West LA community life — with roughly 40% of its campus damaged and the remainder deemed unsafe to occupy. With more than 2,500 students suddenly without a school, the question wasn’t simply where to hold classes, but how to restore a vital part of the community.

With remote learning straining students and a hard deadline to return students to campus before year’s end, Pali High collaborated with Gensler, C.W. Driver Companies, and the City of Santa Monica to transform 100,000 square feet of a former Sears — vacant since 2017 — into a functioning campus. Starting from a shell with no interior walls, wiring, or bathrooms, the team delivered dozens of classrooms and full supporting infrastructure in just four weeks, compressing a process that typically takes over a year.

Pali High South’s greatest legacy may be its replicability. As natural disasters increase in frequency, vacant retail and civic buildings could become the next generation of schools, clinics, and community hubs. This project charts a new path for resilience and demonstrates how adaptive reuse can function as disaster-response infrastructure. More than a temporary home, the new campus inspired a displaced community and showed what’s possible when design responds in times of need.