Project Data:

Firm Name:              Gary P. Moon, AIA

Completion Date:     3/12/2018

Square Footage:      52000

Building Use:           Student Services Building

Location:                 Huntington Beach, CA

Project Description:

PROGRAMATIC STATEMENT:
Community College campuses are in competition with other campuses to attract students. The more students they attract, the more money the College has operate with and offer student programs to support the student’s journey. The goal of the College is to produce students that are immediately employable or that will proceed on to a higher degree. If the campus’ enrollment process is easy or difficult, it sends a clear message to the student about how important that student is to the institution and how organized the College is. If the student’ experience is poor, it is very likely that that student will travel a bit further down the freeway to find a better experience.

DESIGN:
Preeminent architect William Pereira planned and built Golden West College in one cohesive, dogmatic breath. Every building was conceived as an element that fits into a great interlinked network or grid. It is a megastructure concept grid of concrete columns and beams that form building structure, portals, and vine covered shade structures. The solution was a unique idea to contend with very expansive soil conditions.

The stakeholder’s goals for the building were to encourage student access and allow students to immediately understand all the programs and services that would be available to support them. This led to a centralized parti or organization comprised of a central space (Student Collaborative Center) around which all the departments have a face. From the central Student Collaborative Center, a student can view all the services that they will need to support them throughout their College journey.

Design Strategies:
1. Wave: Way-finding on the original dogmatically planned campus was impossible, as every building looks like every other building. In an entire campus of right angles, the simple idea was to introduce a curve. The curvilinear wave welcomes and guides students into the center of the building, which is its’ heart. It relates to Huntington Beach’s surf culture and the Golden West College and Coast Community Colleges’ branding “Oceans of Opportunity”.

2. Transparency: The new building’s expansive glassed areas were intentional to express the internal programmatic functions to the viewer; to reveal students getting support, eating, playing, conversing, studying etc. and to connect to the surrounding landscaped areas.

3. Pinwheel: In stark contrast to the original Library and the necessity of having a single secure entrance, the Student Services Center is porous and with multiple entrances accessible from all areas of the campus. The concept manifested itself as the result of creating distinct department massing separated by radiating circulation which emanates from the central space.

4. A building of this era: Concrete is no longer an inexpensive material to build with. To contrast with the context, we chose a polychrome rain-screen ceramic tile skin which floats over a steel structure. For the interior, materials and colors were chosen to convey warmth (woods) freshness (contrast to concrete) and ocean colors to root the spaces in the “surf culture”. Of note are the service transaction counters where students receive support/help. The counter’s geometries are soft curvilinear forms that are intuitively obvious and intimate waves. “Oceans of Opportunity”.

C.O.T.E. | Committee on the Environment

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