Marvel's Agents of SHIELD - Filming Locations: the SHIELD Academy

The Southern California locations where Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is filmed.

Episode 12 ("Seeds") gives us our first look at a S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, when the team visits
the campus to investigate an incident of a student being frozen in a swimming pool.

We get to see that Fitz-Simmons are legends at their old alma mater,
while Ward is out of his comfort zone, and it's all new to Skye.

This filming location is a tricky one - because it's actually made up of several different locations, including:

1. The main campus exteriors (seen above).
2. The building where Skye & Ward visit the Wall of Honor, and
3. The swimming pool where an Academy student gets frozen.

And the reality is that location #1 is a good 30 miles away from location #2. That's not unusual for Hollywood.
They simply combine the shots from the three different locations to give the impression of a single campus.

So, let's take a look at the elements that make up S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy:

The sweeping view of the Academy campus was filmed at the College of the Canyons,
which is located at 26455 Rockwell Canyon Road, in Santa Clarita, CA.

The building we see above is the lab center, Boykin Hall.

Here is a matching shot of the actual campus, minus the fake signs:

The scene below, where Ward meets with a student ('Seth') in a glass tower at the Academy,
was also filmed on the College of the Canyons campus, only this time from inside
the atrium tower at the college's high-tech center, Hasley Hall.

Here's a photo of the exterior of that Hasley Hall tower:

Here is a StreetView panorama of the campus.

However, when it comes to the scene where Ward shows Skye the Academy's
Wall of Valor, the producers pull the old switcheroo on us.

The architecture here so well matches the modern look of College of the Canyons
that one would naturally assume this scene was filmed at the college. It wasn't.

This scene was filmed 30 miles away, at the Japanese American National Museum,
100 N. Central Avenue (at 1st Street), in the Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles.

The main interior we see is the George & Sakaye Aratani Central Hall

Here is a photo of the museum exterior...

And the hall inside:

Likewise, since they were already filming at the College of the Canyons, one might assume that
the Academy lecture hall scene (where Fitz-Simmons give "the talk" to an audience of students),
would have been shot at that college, in one of its auditoriums or lecture halls. But it wasn't.

Instead, this lecture scene (where a student, Donnie, is frozen & rescued) was shot inside a 198-seat
auditorium at the same Japanese American National Museum, a 3,575 square foot
room called the Tateuchi Democracy Forum

Here's a photo of that room at the museum:

Here is a StreetView panorama of the museum.

Finally, what about that Academy swimming pool, which appears at the
beginning of the episode, where Seth gets his leg caught in the freezing pool?

That scene wasn't shot at the college or at the museum.

Instead, they opted for a third location, an LA city pool at the
Los Angeles Center For Enriched Studies, a magnet school campus
for grades 6-12, at 5931 W. 18th Street, in Los Angeles.

Here's a photo of the pool, which is located inside the school gym,
(but is open to the public on weekends.)

Ranked as one of the top public schools in the nation, LACE has seen
students such as Leonardo DiCaprio, and Patricia & David Arquette.

Here is a StreetView panorama of the school.

The photos on this page are stills from "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."
(which you can buy here) and are copyright ABC/Disney/Marvel.