Project Data:

Completion Date:     12/1/2024

Square Footage:      92745

Building Use:           Visual Arts Education and Gallery Spaces

Project Description:

The project breathes new life into CSU Fullerton's Visual Arts Complex, affecting 60% of the program area, and 75% of the outdoor space. The project includes a new Education building that contains digital fabrication and arts facilities, a new Gallery building for Professional and Student exhibition, and extensive reworking of the outdoor spaces around 5 buildings, organizing programs formerly distributed across the campus into concentrated hubs for each department.

The building siting and massing are configured to maximize interdisciplinary interactions between the facilities’ diverse constituencies and to create an open flexible environment to support engagement and visibility to the greater community. The design of the outdoor spaces expands programmatic and informal academic activities beyond the prescriptive required programs, including spaces for outdoor arts production and presentation, and a diverse set of areas for students to gather at various scales. Equally important was how the building responded passively to environmental conditions of sound, wind, and sun, and celebrated the unique atmospheres of its place within a visual language that harmonized with the existing campus. Material tectonics were chosen that harmonize environmental, programmatic, and contextual imperatives.

Through a series of 3 interview/charrette sessions with the client as part of the selection process, a series of key goals were established: equity, timelessness, and engagement serve as the primary design drivers.

Originally serving a more homogenous population of 900, the CSUF campus has evolved to support a population of 1800 students of diverse ages and backgrounds. These demographics, combined with new arts practices including the digital arts, mandated a platform that was physically and programmatically more inclusive and adaptable.

To further push for inclusivity, the project includes ways to meaningfully demystify the arts and creative process and to embrace spatial strategies to increase student collaboration, arts and science research, and interdisciplinary activities. As one example, the new Gallery building purposely brings together the spaces for established artists with those of the students, creating positive generational friction and dialogue within one space.

The timeless design applied to the new buildings respect and build on the historic streamlined modernism of the existing arts buildings, while expanding the conversation to address inclusion, adaptability, community, and sustainability.

Finally expanding the notion of engagement beyond just students in the arts, siting and program placement activates all key edges including the main north south arrival axis to the campus, making this arts mall part of every student’s campus experiences. In smaller ways the site has been designed to amplify the occupation of spaces outside the buildings for discussion and reflection. The exterior of the building, not hallowed vessels of academia, have been reconceived as outdoor learning and presentation spaces—canvases for student exploration and innovation.

Firm Name:              HGA

Completion Date:     12/1/2024

Square Footage:      92745

Building Use:           Visual Arts Education and Gallery Spaces

Location:                 Fullerton, California

Project Description:
In addition to its educational goals, the design prioritizes strategies that builds community, enhances occupant wellbeing, and implements smart passive sustainability as an additional set of essential drivers.

The massing and placement of programs were situated to intentionally amplify interactions beyond the visual arts student body. The new academic building greets the campus entry with an expansive social front porch capping a completely transparent ground level.

The new Gallery building has an equally transparent and open entry space that can be used by outside campus groups is directly across from the main campus performance hall at a key arrival intersection. The entry is flanked by two covered outdoor galleries that bring the arts onto the arts mall instead of forcing people to only enter the building to experience the art. Embracing light as one of the key attributes of experiencing many of the traditional visual arts, a series of clerestories and skylights bathe the interior with soft northern light.

Reconnections to the outdoors happen in large and small ways: academic spaces on the ground level have expansive glazed walls, while the digital studios balance critical light control with a continuous ribbon window that frames views to the treetops. A sky aperture brings a highly controlled space for natural light within the Gallery building’s shaded internal courtyard.

The overall building massing was designed to amplify its wellness and sustainability goals while deploying simple effective passive strategies. The two-story mass above the entry porch is part of a comprehensive shaded strategy that protects the glazing and provides a projection surface for digital art. Placing this two-story building to the west provides late afternoon shade to then entire campus’ inner quad. The shifted upper volumes on the Gallery building provide shade for outdoor spaces and glazing as they cap the outdoor galleries, while its curved edges enhance movement around this central building. The new and old buildings are woven together by a network of outdoor spaces for academic and student life, all set under a dense new canopy of trees.

Design Architect:
Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Inc. (HGA)

Associate Architect or Firm:
N/A

Landscape Architect:
Landscape Architect: landLAB

Owner / Developer:
Owner/Developer: California State University Capital Planning, Design & Construction

Engineer:
Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing Engineer: ME Engineers

Structural Engineer: Saiful Bouquet Structural Engineers

Civil Engineer: KPFF Consulting Engineers

General Contractor:
Design/Builder: C.W. Driver

Consultant:
Lighting Designer: Luminesce Design

Photographer:
N/A: Renderings by HGA