SANTA BARBARA, Calif.—Building firm C.W. Driver Companies has completed work on the $70 million, four-story Interactive Learning Pavilion at UC Santa Barbara. The new facility adds classrooms, lecture halls as well as discussion rooms to this picturesque campus located on a spit of land overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

The 95,000-square-foot structure at UCSB offers approximately 2,000 seats of classroom space across its various lecture halls, including areas dedicated specifically for project-based learning. Each of the building’s 32 classrooms and lecture halls offer capacity anywhere from 30 to 350 students.

The center of the pavilion features a breezeway between two of the major buildings that make up the Interactive Learning Pavilion. Exposed terraces and stairs receive ample sunlight, and the upper levels allow for stellar views of the campus as well as the nearby ocean. In an effort at green building, the pavilion is entirely powered by electricity and no natural gas, which allows the facility to be designated as LEED Gold.

C.W. Driver worked with LMN Architects to realize the project. LMN Architects is headquartered in Seattle. Their design for the learning pavilion took into consideration “the history of UCSB and its seascape vistas [so] the building has been envisioned as a microcosm of the societal and natural conditions around the site,” as per the firm’s website.

According to personnel from C.W. Driver, realizing the learning pavilion required extensive planning due to the site’s centrality within the bike-friendly UCSB campus.

“The project…required an early re-route of bicycle and pedestrian lanes, as well as planning for just-in-time deliveries in the early morning to keep clear of student traffic,” said Jeff Bara, Senior Project Manager at C.W. Driver. “We worked closely with the university to develop off-site staging where delivery vehicles could enter the campus individually, therefore limiting the number of trucks on campus at any given time and minimizing the impact of construction on the community.”

For its work at the pavilion, C.W. Driver was awarded the Liberty Mutual Insurance Safety Commendation Gold Award from the University Controlled Insurance Program (UCIP), which recognizes a project demonstrating an outstanding safety record.

“Looking at the early plan sets, we knew we were building something unique and beautiful,” Tom Jones, Project Executive with C.W. Driver, said in a subsequent statement emailed to School Construction News. “Speaking for the management and crews, we were all motivated by the stunning design and reaching the finish product. The end result was worth it.”

C.W. Driver Companies has been in operation in California since 1919. Their various educational projects across the Golden State include the Pomona-Pitzer College Rains Athletic Center; CSU Dominguez Hill’s Science and Innovation Building; CSU San Bernardino’s Coyote Village and Coyote Commons; MiraCosta College Chemistry & Biotechnology Building; Orange Coast College’s Language Arts and Social Science Building, Kinesiology and Athletics Complex and Student Union Complex; Chapman University’s Keck Center for Science and Engineering; and Cal Poly Pomona’s Student Services Building.

The firm is ranked in Engineering News Record’s Top 150 General Contractors and Top 100 Construction Managers. The firm operates from offices in Los Angeles, Rancho Cucamonga, Anaheim, San Diego and Carlsbad.

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SANTA BARBARA, Calif.—The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is undergoing an expansion project to add another teaching building to its seaside campus along the “American Riviera.”

The $78 million, 95,000-square-foot project will feature lecture halls, learning spaces and flexible discussion rooms. The building will be a project-based learning hub for UCSB, comprising 32 classrooms and lecture halls, each of which will be able to handle anywhere from 30 to 350 students each.

The new building was designed by LMN Architects of Seattle and was meant to both meld in with the Southern California construction motif as well as take advantage of the natural elements of the surrounding campus area, which abuts the ocean. LMN’s design aims to achieve, at a minimum, LEED Gold certification.

Directly outside the new learning annex, there will be spaces for nearly 2,000 bicycles to be parked—rather appropriate for a Southern California college. Also, an exterior “street corridor” will encourage interaction between students and faculty as they walk between and among UCSB’s buildings. Furthermore, views from the upper-floor classroom windows will allow students and faculty views of the nearby UCSB Pardall Mall to the west, Library Mall to the north and, of course, views of the Pacific Ocean and offshore Channel Islands to the south.

General contractor C.W. Driver Companies broke ground on the construction in March. Project executive Tom Jones said that his firm was charged with fashioning a classroom building that would be a major nexus of educational activity at the heart of the campus.

“Leveraging our expertise in higher education, we recognize the need to create a dynamic environment that not only emphasizes academic inquiry for students, but also fosters interpersonal connections that inspire scholarly ambition, creativity and discoveries with a wide-ranging impact,” Jones said in a recent statement.

Added Liana Khammash, project manager for UC Santa Barbara: “As our university rapidly expands, exceeding our existing classroom capacity, there is a strong need for the new 95,000-square-foot classroom building. This new building will seamlessly integrate into the surrounding public spaces, which have been conceived as extensions of life on campus.”

The project is on the fast track, with a projected completion time of Winter 2022.

General contractor C.W. Driver Companies is over a century old, and in the past few years has expanded its school construction work in California, including in San Diego County and Orange County. The firm recently appeared in Engineering News Record’s Top 150 General Contractors and Top 100 Construction Managers.

Last fall, UCSB also broke ground on a $5 million tennis facility. The campus currently is home to over 26,000 students.

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PULLMAN, Wash.—The new $66 million Plant Sciences Building at Washington State University in Pullman is now open. The latest addition to the V. Lane Rawlins Research and Education Complex, the state-of-the-art building was funded by the Washington State Legislature (WSU).

WSU is a preeminent agricultural research institution committed to fostering its land-grant heritage and tradition of service to society. The Plant Sciences Building integrates several disciplines from the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences (CAHNRS), and is central to fulfilling this mission.

The 82,437-square-foot building is a new center for interdisciplinary research and was designed and constructed by the design/build team of Skanska and LMN Architects. The project provides new infrastructure for the Institute of Biological Chemistry, as well as laboratories that integrate faculty and students in plant biochemistry, pathology, horticulture, and crop and soil sciences into a single facility.

The new five-story building supports Washington’s $51 billion food and agriculture industry by providing a modern research venue for faculty and students in the Institute of Biological Chemistry, WSU’s Molecular Plant Science Program, and portions of the Departments of Horticulture, Plant Pathology, and Crop and Soil Sciences.

“Because of the close collaboration between the architects at LMN and our college and university, we were able to design and build a truly modern facility for WSU plant research,” said CAHNRS Dean André-Denis Wright.

The project drew on participation from members of the state’s grain, tree fruit, wine, grape, potato, dairy, beef, and raspberry industries, as well as the Washington State Department of Agriculture and the Washington Farm Bureau.

The building is the fourth to be completed within the master plan for the Research and Education Complex (REC) at WSU, originally developed by LMN Architects in 2005.

“The new Plant Sciences Building marks a significant milestone in Washington State’s commitment to sustainable agriculture and ecological stewardship,” said LMN Partner Stephen Van Dyck, AIA.“As a central element of the Research and Education Complex, the new building provides state-of-the-art research facilities that are interconnected to the culture of research on the Washington State University campus. As a central node of the interdisciplinary complex, the building is designed to nurture collaborative innovation in this critical sector.”

The plan configuration of the building allows it to fulfill the master plan while accommodating an existing utility tunnel to the south—a formal adjustment to the master plan which lowered construction costs. At the western entry, the building’s cantilevered composition frames a new grand entry to the whole complex and features a two-floor cantilever facing west towards Martin Stadium.

The new facility will also be a social and interdisciplinary heart for the research complex. Designed for flexibility well into the future, the building hosts infrastructure for a variety of research needs beyond the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences. A welcoming four-floor staircase encourages vertical circulation and provides important visual connections between floors.

The interior arrangement of laboratories is designed to support efficient and flexible research over time. The modular laboratories can be easily rearranged to respond to the changing needs of research throughout the building. To the north of the modular laboratories, offices for principal investigators are interspersed with open work areas for graduate researchers. To the south of the laboratories, a series of modular support spaces accommodate a variety of specialized research equipment within easy reach of the adjacent lab benches.

On the exterior, the building reimagines the red-brick campus. The high-performance precast concrete façade panel system is clad with a sculpted, red-brick veneer. The panels integrate structure, insulation, weather barrier, interior, and exterior finishes.

Said LMN Principal Jennifer Milliron, “We have approached the design and delivery process for this building as an effort in applied research. Our Progressive Design-Build team partnered with WSU early in the process and prioritized innovative design and construction methods. Our partnership with Skanska allowed our team to explore integrated design and construction opportunities that prioritized high-performance systems, opening opportunities for architectural expression while simultaneously maximizing construction efficiencies.”

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CHICAGO—The design of the new Computer, Design, Research, and Learning Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) was recently released by architecture firms LMN Architects and Booth Hansen. The building has been designed to achieve LEED Gold certification.

Located at a unique prominent site on campus, the 135,000-square-foot center will consolidate the currently fragmented Computer and Science Department into a new home and co-locate it with a large cluster of university-administered classrooms at the heart of the east campus.

The building has been designed to be an inclusive and inviting space for the diverse student body. A public research university, UIC is one of the most diverse universities in the U.S.

The building will serve research needs with state-of-the-art facilities, accommodate the rapidly increasing undergraduate enrollment in computer science, and become a new campus hub.

Construction will begin in Spring 2021. With a slated completion date of Spring 2023, the new building will double its capacity. As a hub for both engineering and computer science, it will include research areas comprised of faculty offices, collaboration areas, a dry lab and specialty lab, administrative and student affairs office spaces, collaborative teaching and learning spaces for undergraduate and graduate students, an undergraduate learning and community center, and a flexible events room all connected by a five story daylit atrium.

“Together with the department, University, and CBD (Capital Development Board), our team of LMN and Booth Hansen have designed the building to become a welcoming hub, a building that embraces the old and presents an iconic new presence along Taylor Street,” said LMN Partner Stephen Van Dyck, AIA, in a statement.

Added Booth Hansen Principal David Mann, “Throughout the design process, we have been inspired by the convergences that this project represents. At the heart of it all is the convergence of UIC’s mission and the region’s growing Tech prominence. For so many in the region, this new building will symbolize opportunity. The new building will be located adjacent to one of the original Netsch buildings, near other College of Engineering facilities and Memorial Grove. This unique site allows for an innovative design that is inspired by the context, materiality, and qualities of precast concrete material,”

The project for the UIC is being administered by the Capital Development Board and will be bid to single prime contractors. Subcontractors will bid through the prime contractors. The cost of this project is not being disclosed at this time prior to bidding.

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EAST LANSING, Mich.— The opening of the new Edward J. Minskoff Pavilion at Michigan State University was celebrated in late September.

The three-story building spans 100,000 square feet that transforms the Eli Broad College of Business into a unified complex that combines modern teaching facilities with contemporary social spaces. Technology integration, classrooms and flexible spaces promote academic and professional excellence

LMN Architects was the architect on this approximately $62-million project that was designed in collaboration with FTCH, OLIN and Clark Construction.

Said LMN Architects Partner Rafael Viñoly-Menendez, “From our first conversations on the project, Dean Gupta expressed a clear vision for the building: a place that would not only foster learning, collaboration and engagement with alumni and the business community, but also a facility that would weave the existing spaces to create a more cohesive “campus within a campus.’ He was equally inspired by the opportunity to connect the interior spaces to nature as an essential element of the student’s well-being. And, above all, the building needed to welcome all students and not be perceived as exclusively a benefit to the business school.”

The building is located within the heart of the university along the Red Cedar River. A central communal atrium is framed by two program “bars” that focus views through the building to the river and landscape beyond. Classrooms, student services and administrative spaces are dispersed through all levels and are arranged around this central social space.

“The atrium was designed to be the ‘heart’ of the Broad College of Business, the place where students can gather, as individuals and a community, to share experiences,” said Viñoly-Menendez.

The atrium provides a new hub for Broad College to host college-wide events, recruitment fairs, informal gatherings and team collaboration, search for drugs. Circulation balconies overlooking the atrium lead to flat/flexible and tiered/case study classrooms for discussions, technology-enabled active learning and networking. A central feature of the atrium are generous amphitheater stairs. The pavilion’s masonry, glass, and metal exterior express the contemporary functionality surrounding campus architecture.

“The Minskoff Pavilion is unlike any other project the university has seen and represents the next phase of higher education,” said Dean Gupta.

“We placed an intentional emphasis on the pavilion’s architecture and classroom designs to enhance the experience that each student will have. Broad Spartans have a new building on campus where they can unleash their creativity and benefit from a space that is focused on collaboration and teamwork.”

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SEATTLE—The new Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences Middle School is now complete. Located in a densely populated urban neighborhood in Seattle—at the intersection of Union Street and 13th Avenue in Capitol Hill—the new six-story middle school was designed by LMN Architects to leverage the limited site and connect with adjacent school buildings and the neighborhood. The general contractor on this project was GLY Construction, Inc. The cost of the project is confidential.

“What was originally visualized as a collaborative, innovative, dynamic and student-centric learning space has fully come to life and exceeded our expectations for our middle-school students, teachers and community,” says Rob Phillips, Seattle Academy’s head of school.

Middle School academic spaces occupy the upper floors in the new 51,372-square-foot building, while the lower floors provide for entry, administration, general gathering, maker space and music instruction. A gymnasium and outdoor rooftop playfield provide much-needed physical activity space.

“Beyond the programmatic and site complexities, this project reaffirms the important role of schools in the urban context,” explains LMN Design Partner Wendy Pautz.

“An innovative approach to stacked program and connectivity between students, classes, grades, the broader school and the community provides an educational experience centered on team-oriented projects and problem-based learning, grounded in the larger context of its neighborhood. We hope this new project contributes to the well-being of the community, the education of its children and the social activity along the Union Street corridor.”

Pautz says the primary design challenge was to integrate and reconcile the intrinsic challenges of a constrained urban site with the program requirements needed to support this new middle school.

“A vertically stacked building configuration incorporates classrooms, laboratories, collaboration spaces and indoor and outdoor athletic spaces into a contemporary and flexible design. Beyond the programmatic and site complexities, the Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences Middle School reaffirms the important role of schools in the urban context.”

Each middle school grade occupies a floor within the building, with classrooms organized around a collaborative learning space to accommodate project-based learning and cross-discipline discovery. These spaces are designed as a series of double-height, stepped interior volumes that cascade between floors, enhancing visual and physical connectivity within the stacked program and creating opportunities for students to observe, cross paths, interact and engage beyond the four walls of the classroom.

Daylight, natural ventilation and operable windows allow for control of each of the spaces and promotes connection to the world outside of the building. The building’s coordinated stair and elevator landings ensure that students moving through the building in groups always converge at the same destination. An outdoor space at the entry also provides a welcoming gathering place.

Each classroom floor features a different accent color while a ribbon of faceted panels on the feature walls and ceilings. This helps to connect these spaces and provide visual continuity both within the building and into the neighborhood.

The façade is a mix of gray- and cream-colored bricks that fade vertically from dark to light, while multi-colored red sunshades provide a contrast against the brick backdrop.

LMN Architects has designed and built projects for multiple independent schools in the Seattle area, as well as the Foster School of Business Paccar Hall and the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, and the Lee Center for the Arts at Seattle University.

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The new three-story pavilion will feature collaborative learning environments for both undergraduate and graduate students as well as faculty, corporate partners and alumni who will help shape a future generation of business leaders. Seattle-based LMN Architects designed the pavilion in partnership with locally based FTCH, the architect/engineer of record. National construction firm Clark Construction Company is serving as the construction manager.

Broad College Dean Sanjay Gupta said that the new facility’s design will emphasize the importance of training students to work in teams. “We need classrooms where technology is seamlessly assimilated with collaborative spaces,” Gupta said in a statement. “This is the important remaining piece in our efforts to improve the recognition, reputation, and rankings of our programs.”

The pavilion will invite students in with a three-story atrium that serves as the “new front door” of Broad College as well as an open space to host Broad College events, recruitment fairs and collaborative learning. Amphitheater stairs continue that sense of community down to the café, multipurpose rooms and outdoor areas, according to a statement. Plus, its location in the middle of the campus along the Red Cedar River will help connect Shaw Lane and the river walk.

The entire space celebrates Broad College’s community culture and collaborative learning with a variety of classrooms, laboratories and social spaces incorporated at every turn. Natural light from a skylight and clerestory windows that span the full length of the building also enhance the space enough for students to want to stick around for independent study, group projects and informal meetings, according to a statement. Two program “bars” frame the transparent community space, providing views through the building to the landscaping outside. Corridors are designed to overlook the atrium as students walk to tiered classrooms that feature technology-enabled spaces.

The exterior perfectly blends the old and the new with glass and metal finishes that nod to a more contemporary learning environment, while mimicking other aspects of the surrounding campus to pay homage to the past.

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The new building, referred to as CSE2, will complement the existing Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering, also located on the Seattle campus, and will double the computer science and engineering program’s capacity. While the Paul G. Allen Center provided a significant boost to the program when it was completed in 2003, the university has since seen requests for enrollment skyrocket as the region is now home to both successful startups and leading tech companies. In a background document outlining the project’s need, the university noted that in the 14 years since the Paul G. Allen Center debuted, the computer science and engineering undergraduate program has doubled in size, and the graduate program and number of faculty have each grown by 50 percent. In that same time period, the program’s annual research funding has tripled and computer science and engineering has surpassed business administration as the university’s most sought-after major.

Upon completion, CSE2 will provide new instructional and collaborative spaces, expanded research labs and a sophisticated makerspace. An undergraduate commons area will offer space for students to study, relax or work collaboratively, while dedicated interview rooms will allow industry representatives to meet one-on-one with students. A tiered, 250-seat auditorium to be named the Amazon Auditorium will accommodate large classes and department colloquia. Meanwhile, research labs, robotics workshops, graduate seminar rooms and graduate-student offices will cater to higher-level students, according to the project website. A large, flexible commons space to be named the Zillow Commons will enable the university to host a variety of events and functions.

“Together, CSE2 and the Allen Center will enable [UW] to provide an unparalleled education and research experience to students, and to engage in even more robust collaborations across the campus, the region, and the globe,” the website continued.

The project’s design team was also responsible for the Paul G. Allen Center, and includes LMN Architects of Seattle and M.A. Mortenson Company, headquartered in Minneapolis. The building is currently set to open in January 2019.

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