APPLIED SCIENCES BUILDING, Orange County, CA
Design Team Leader with HED
Short-listed concept for a 45,000-square-foot applied sciences building at a community college in Orange County. The site, on the east edge of the campus, lies 90 feet below the main quad, in a parking lot facing a wetland preserve and the Santa Ana Mountains beyond. The new building’s purpose is to bring together various programs, none of which is large enough to require its own facility. Nearly all the programs have indoor/outdoor functions. The courtyard building allows extensive access to the outdoors while creating a cloistered social hub framing a view of the mountains, a view not accessible from much of the rest of the campus. The footprint is situated to keep existing mature trees as figure pieces in the courtyard. The perimeter is carved to allow breezes to enter the courtyard, and the façade would be articulated with shading modulated to control light and capture views.