Dedicated to Empowering and Informing the Burlingame Community

BHS Gym: Saving money on architecture?

Several people have commented on the almost completed BHS gym.  It has been two years in the making since the last gym bit the dust.  In that 2023 post you can also see the original gym's design (courtesy of the Historical Society archives), which makes the new one even a bit harder on the eyes.  Some people think the new one looks like a Public Storage facility.  I see the similarity.  They certainly didn't splurge on architectural billable hours so I hope they used the rest of the money to outfit the interior well.

I think the Grand Opening is still scheduled for August 27th which is when we will find out.  Go Panthers.

BHS gym near completion

Posted in ,

14 responses to “BHS Gym: Saving money on architecture?”

  1. Jennifer Pfaff

    I hope they kept some funds for some meaningful landscaping…

  2. Cassandra

    Could’ve had the roof color match the tiles of the school.

  3. Mom

    Unfortunately I wouldn’t count on too much landscaping.

  4. Jennifer Pfaff

    What a shame. It’s not like the most recent one was gorgeous, but it was functional and at least blended. This already is an eyesore. That white “stripe”(?) looks like a mistake. It’s expensive to build anything these days; I cannot imagine that was the best the District architect(s) had to offer. It sure doesn’t compliment the School building, either, it’s a total distraction…

  5. Timothy Hooker

    It’s a beautiful building and as of today at 5am, the landscaping is looking good on the Northside of the building. The lighting is beautiful. Great job BHS and San Mateo School District.
    Lots of jobs as well..

  6. resident

    Meh. Another box. The red is the school color. They should have left it for the inside.

  7. Jennifer Pfaff

    Agree– Costco”ish”. Compare this gym building to the SMHS gym built perhaps 20 years ago, and the soon to-be-built Mercy High gym– both done to complement, yet not “upstage” adjacent structures.

  8. Handle Bard

    They should sell naming rights to Costco

  9. Laura

    It’s so ugly. The roof glows and you can see it as your plane lands at SFO. The architect didn’t even try to match the school or the surrounding area. This really looks nothing like the rendition they showed at the beginning.

  10. Joe

    It’s ugly, but it’s home……from the DJ:
    The road warriors have found a home.
    After playing the past two seasons exclusively on the road due to longterm gymnasium renovations, the Burlingame volleyball team walked into its new 37,500 square foot, two-story athletics complex Wednesday for the first time. Panther volleyball began its weeklong tryouts Monday at Mills High School, but moved tryouts onto campus Wednesday for the new gym’s grand opening on the first day of school.
    All of Burlingame’s indoor sports have been playing off campus for the past two years. The volleyball team last played an official match on campus Oct. 25, 2022. Since then, the Panthers have played 64 consecutive road matches.

  11. Bruce Dickinson

    Guys, it’s me, THE Bruce Dickinson, and I’m here to evaluate this gymNAUSEAUM… and quite frankly, it’s giving me Public Storage meets airport hanger with side of Warehouse Club.!
    First off, we know that BHS’s main building and facade was designed by W. H. Weeks and is a restrained Beaux-Arts interpretation of classical or neo-classical revival. Symmetrical massing with a classical, columned portico…typical of Weeks’ high schools of the era.
    This nausea inducing gymnasium on the other hand gives yours truly this impression: You dropped a big red shoebox with wrap-around sunglasses onto a 1920s classical campus. The old buildings are doing Beaux-Arts; this thing is doing bulk pricing!!! That weird white section across the massing? That’s a cowbell hit on the wrong beat—loud, proud, and not in the pocket, as it were.
    The roofline gleams like a beacon to inbound flights at SFO. Bold color can be a vibe, but here it upstages its elders instead of harmonizing. On a campus with tile roofs and classical proportions, this wants either: Respectful contrast (refined, quiet materials, disciplined joints), or, a wink to tradition (color/texture cues, cornice/column rhythm).
    It chose neither. It’s just… a box.
    Ways to improve this:
    1) Tame the red: Desaturate future panels/trim to a deeper brick or match the campus tile; reserve Panther red for interior accents and signage.
    2) Hide the glow: Add a thin shadow cornice to conceal roof glare and give the mass a finished “lid.”
    3) Visually break that white area with vertical fins/pilaster cues that echo the campus’ column rhythm; align mullions so the grid feels intentional.
    4) Warm the night look: Replace harsh cool floods with warm wall-washers and graze lighting; highlight entries, not the box.
    5) Camouflage with landscaping: Tall canopy trees, climbing vines on trellis, and layered shrubs along blank walls. Costco-ish becomes campus-ish fast.
    6) A modest portico or shading canopy at the main door…proportion it like a classical entablature as a nod to the neighbors.
    7) Signage with dignity: Dimensional metal letters or a Panther bas-relief.. would exude confidence without being shouty.
    As this thing stands, the inside better be a banger! Anyway, just a public service from your armchair architect, Bruce Dickinson. You think a $500k architect fee that SMUSD probably paid would have produced something better than this…Instead you get a legendary record producer on a community blog coming up with something way way way better and all pro-bono… Let that ripe in your noggins for a while!

  12. Jennifer Pfaff

    ‘Appreciate BD’s ideas for improvements, above.
    Never one to slough off in the “due-diligence” department, I decided I’d better go look at the thing up close and personal, before being too “judgy”.
    I got a few good photos, including of the interior, before being nabbed by a coach on a golf-cart, wondering what I was doing walking around, without a Visitor Pass. Then he was kind enough to escort me all the way through Washington Park so I could be on my merry way.
    Here are my Boots on the Ground notes:
    Being a Bearcat alumna, (but with Panther kids) I cannot be 100% positive, but this “red” appears to me not to be BHS Panther Red; it has some orange in it which can only be seen up close. This possibly explains some of the comments about the “glow” from the aerial views.
    That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if they’d toned down the entire exterior to be closer to the tile roof of the 1920s adjacent building (as mentioned, above). Reds tend to fade (fast), so this may improve over time, all by itself.
    The side of the building facing inward, toward the school and driveway is the better designed side, with some visual interest that breaks up the massive “storage unit” Costco look. Too bad nobody can see that from the street. There is a “quasi” portico area, yes, even with metal lettering; it appears this was the area where more design attention was paid, yet it is largely hidden, except for those in the quad area and driveway.
    The metal lettering on the roof overhang is an attractive font, but it goes under, IMO. If they hadn’t already gone through way more than their allotment of red paint on the exterior, it would have been a nice touch to paint just the lettering “Burlingame High School Gymnasium” in red (the right Panther red). But oh well…
    As “Mom” and others stated above, the landscaping is (in a word) pathetic. Drought resistant low bushes in a swale, is what it looks like to me. Very few trees –no hope of “green” mitigation, in particular on the least attractive 2 faces visible from the track area– Oak Grove Ave. and Carolan facing sides–those with the huge white (or unpainted?) asymetrical swath. It is still unclear what the thinking was there, except to take a visual break from the omnipresent red.
    How about a nice mosaic tile mural designed in the BHS art studios this year? As it stands, the white super-sized swath will be filthy within a year, tops, and it will always look unfinished, like the money ran out…oh well.
    The most visually disturbing thing I noticed today, however, was what I assumed to be some kind of humongous, new-fangled window panel, on those same outward-facing sides. Close-up (25 ft. away) they look actually resemble something closer to parchment paper windows, not glass. Perhaps plastic? Maybe the point is to let in only indirect light, so the players aren’t blinded (?) but they look very strange and worse, they look very cheap IMO.
    Moving inside, as one door was open this morning, BD, the interior of the gym looks very nice and airy. Here and there they have as-of-yet unfilled display shelving/ cubbies that will liven up the hallways with time. Not being the sporty type, I’ll leave the final judgement as to gym functionality up to others who will be attending real events there. But the interior looked nice and perky, with just enough Panther Red to be fun and useful, whereas outside, it’s just Too Much.
    That was the end of my field trip this time before The Coach swept me up in his golf cart. As a side note, thank you to BHS for keeping your campus safe from the occasional oddball visitor like me.

  13. Joe

    Well said, Jennifer. You sound like an experienced Planning Commissioner. Oh wait, you are………..

  14. Bruce Dickinson

    Jen-Baby is the BEST! Love the critique and obviously deep care for the community. And that’s coming from me! *wink*

Leave a Reply

RECENT COMMENTS

RECENT POSTS

CATEGORIES

ABOUT THE VOICE

The Burlingame Voice is dedicated to informing and empowering the Burlingame community.  Our blog is a public forum for the discussion of issues that relate to Burlingame, California.  Opinions posted on the Burlingame Voice are those of the poster and commenter and not necessarily the opinion of the Editorial Board.  Comments are subject to the Terms of Use.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

All content subject to Copyright 2003-2026

Discover more from The Burlingame Voice

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading