The new Classroom Building, designed by LMN Architects, has broken ground at the University of California Santa Barbara. It will be the first new classroom building on campus since 1967.
The four-story, 90,000-sf facility will increase campus classroom capacity by 35%, providing 2,000 seats across five lecture halls, three active learning flat-floor rooms, and 20 flexible classrooms in the center of the University’s shoreline campus. The building is designed to be a porous structure that opens at every face to welcome the university community and intertwine the life of the building with the surrounding campus and natural environment.
The Classroom Building will comprise two main volumes surrounding a central circulation corridor that runs east-west, linking the extension of Library Mall to Science Walk. An open-air paseo will interconnect the functions of the two buildings’ masses, providing outdoor terraces, stairs, bridges, and collaboration spaces designed to encourage collaboration among students and faculty.
The exterior will include a vertical facade system comprised of high-performance concrete panels and vertical windows that clad the outward-facing elevations. Facing the building’s internal public spaces, the building takes a radically different form by sculpting the shared exterior terraces with a more loose, organic formal language, driven by the efficient planning of the lecture halls within. The resulting formal and material qualities of these spaces take inspiration from the local vernacular architecture and the adjacent seaside cliffs, recalling the sedimentary sandstone in its curvilinear, polished concrete block walls.
In addition to LMN Architects, the build team also includes C.W. Driver as the builder. The project is slated for completion in 2023.
Related Stories
University Buildings | Sep 21, 2015
Vietnamese university to turn campus into ‘terraced forest’
Pockets of plantings will be dispersed throughout the staggered floors of the building, framing the expansive courtyard at its center.
University Buildings | Sep 21, 2015
6 lessons in campus planning
For campus planning, focus typically falls on repairing the bricks and mortar without consideration of program priorities. Gensler's Pamela Delphenich offers helpful tips and advice.
Mixed-Use | Aug 26, 2015
Innovation districts + tech clusters: How the ‘open innovation’ era is revitalizing urban cores
In the race for highly coveted tech companies and startups, cities, institutions, and developers are teaming to form innovation hot pockets.
University Buildings | Aug 13, 2015
Best of Education Design: 9 projects named AIA Education Facility Design Award winners
Georgia Tech's Clough Commons, Boston's Berklee Tower, and seven other facilities were honored for aiding learning and demonstrating excellent architectural design.
Giants 400 | Aug 7, 2015
UNIVERSITY SECTOR GIANTS: Collaboration, creativity, technology—hallmarks of today’s campus facilities
At a time when competition for the cream of the student/faculty crop is intensifying, colleges and universities must recognize that students and parents are coming to expect an education environment that foments collaboration, according to BD+C's 2015 Giants 300 report.
Contractors | Jul 29, 2015
Consensus Construction Forecast: Double-digit growth expected for commercial sector in 2015, 2016
Despite the adverse weather conditions that curtailed design and construction activity in the first quarter of the year, the overall construction market has performed extremely well to date, according to AIA's latest Consensus Construction Forecast.
University Buildings | Jul 28, 2015
OMA designs terraced sports center for UK's Brighton College
Designs for what will be the biggest construction project in the school’s 170-year history feature a rectangular building at the edge of the school’s playing field. A running track is planned for the building’s roof, while sports facilities will be kept underneath.
University Buildings | Jul 21, 2015
Maker spaces: Designing places to test, break, and rebuild
Gensler's Kenneth Fisher and Keller Roughton highlight recent maker space projects at MIT and the University of Nebraska that provide just the right mix of equipment, tools, spaces, and disciplines to spark innovation.
University Buildings | Jul 2, 2015
Design for new pavilion in Toronto includes a ‘peel-away’ façade
An architect's proposal for a renovation of the main office building at the Ontario College of Art and Design features a façade that fans out from the edges of the building, like it’s opening up to visitors.
University Buildings | Jun 29, 2015
Ensuring today’s medical education facilities fit tomorrow’s healthcare
Through thought-leading design, medical schools have the unique opportunity to meet the needs of today’s medical students and more fully prepare them for their future healthcare careers. Perkins+Will’s Heidi Costello offers five key design factors to improve and influence medical education.
