Besides being the first all-girls public charter middle school in the San Fernando Valley, the Girls Athletic Leadership School Los Angeles, or GALS LA for short, is gaining notoriety for its new campus – the first and only in Los Angeles County to be built entirely out of recycled shipping containers.

The school opened its doors to students last August after finding a permanent home in Van Nuys following eight years of space sharing in Panorama City. Sitting just under 1 acre, GALS LA acquired the land in 2020 and replaced a residential home.

“We have always set out to be a school that serves the public,” Vanessa Garza, executive director of GALS LA, says, emphasizing its sustainable features. “We want the school to look like the face of Los Angeles.”

Made up of 32 recycled shipping containers – 16 on each floor – the school spans 21,300 square feet and includes 17 classrooms, a multipurpose room, a dance room, an office, conference space and a teachers’ lounge.

Each container was stacked modularly – a type of prefabricated and sustainable method of construction where units of a building are made off-site and then assembled on-site. While modular building has gained prominence in recent years due to its less costly and more timely development approach – specifically in the multifamily sector – it’s less commonly used in other types of commercial construction.

“The shipping containers are a more cost effective and faster path to construction. Typically, they’re used in a crisis situation, like a FEMA trailer or for the unhoused or an ADU, like people trying to make their budgets work. Similarly, we wanted to take advantage of that option, but it’s also sustainable,” Garza says. She estimates the choice to proceed with modular design spared the school somewhere between $2 million and $3 million. “They were one-time use containers so we’re keeping them out of the landfill. California is an expensive place to have insurance and they’re safer in fires and earthquakes. There is that advantage and it’s just a way for us to teach the students about sustainability and being stewards of the future. And it’s not just the structure, our whole campus is sustainable.”

Sustainable at its core

Beyond its modular design, Garza points out some other environmentally friendly amenities of the campus, including having a rainwater pump irrigation system as opposed to more-wasteful sprinklers, and featuring LED lights in all the classrooms, which use up to 80% less energy than traditional incandescent and fluorescent lights.

“It’s our first year there so I feel like the dividends that we’ll see aren’t fully manifesting yet, but I think it’s just the role modeling (that embodies the school’s values),” Garza says. “I think it’s also reducing the stigma of what shipping containers are used for. I feel like it’s crisis or affordability or it’s looked down on as if you can’t afford to do other types of construction (but) that’s not the case. I don’t believe in greenwashing, so I feel like we’re representing actual sustainable practices.”

But its weight on sustainability isn’t the only unique aspect of the school. In prioritizing holistic learning, GALS LA emphasizes the brain and body connection, meaning every student starts the day with physical education, as well as social-emotional learning, which, according to Garza, requires every student to take a life skills class to challenge the stressors of middle school life.

“Our model of just education is entirely different,” Garza says. “Sure, we’re a single-gender school and there’s many of those in Los Angeles, but we really capitalize on the backdrop of being a single-gender school. Same thing if you’re going to build a school – do it right. Do it for sustainability; be really inclusive about your purpose.”

Looking ahead, Garza hopes to further decrease the school’s ecological footprint by developing an on-campus garden and by adding shaded parking though installing solar panels.