Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

California Boarding School Opens New Inquiry Collaborative Facility

  • By Matt Jones
  • 07/29/25

Cate School, a boarding school in Carpinteria, Calif., for students grades 9–12, recently announced that it has finished renovating a historic dining hall into a new academic hub, according to a news release. The school partnered with Blackbird Architects and Tangram Interiors on the two-story, 16,000-square-foot Inquiry Collaborative.

Building features include “media and technology studios, classrooms, a ceramics studio, study pods, offices, a double-height terraced reading and lecture space, and the school’s library collection,” the news release reports. The project’s goal was to create a flexible, versatile space allowing students to work together, recharge, and create.

Photo courtesy of Tangram Interiors

“We weren’t just designing furniture layouts—we were helping to shape how students experience academic inquiry,” said Tristin Kranenburg, Sales Director at Tangram. “Every design choice had to answer a single question: Will this environment support and inspire learning?”

Highlights include flexible seating zones for both single and group study work; an AV and digital media lab; and the use of warm colors and bold palettes to evoke the campus’ coastal surroundings.

Photo courtesy of Tangram Interiors

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Texas Recruitment

    Texas Recruitment

    Established in 1999, the Education Design Showcase is a vehicle for showing off innovative — yet practical — solutions in planning, design, architecture, and construction. The University of Texas at Austin's Texas Recruitment has been recognized with an EDS 2026 Grand Prize award in the category of Renovation.

  • Porter Family Center

    Porter Family Center for Innovation and Academics

    Established in 1999, the Education Design Showcase is a vehicle for showing off innovative — yet practical — solutions in planning, design, architecture, and construction. The Porter Family Center for Innovation and Academics has been recognized with an EDS 2026 Project of Distinction award in the category of New Construction.

  • A digital silhouette works at a computer, immersed in a glowing, interconnected world

    How Will AI Transform Learning Space Design?

    For years, higher education has designed learning spaces around technology as a tool for display, capture, collaboration, and connectivity. AI changes that equation.

  • USC Launches Major AI Initiative After $200M Gift

    The University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Calif., recently announced that it has launched a “transformational” new AI initiative thanks to a $200M gift, according to a news release. The project will leverage AI toward breakthroughs and innovations in subjects like the health sciences, business, security, and the arts.