Steel belvedere: docked onto the edge of an iconic Ellwood building, this new student pavilion at Pasadena's Design College is an industrially inspired armature for different activities - Brief Article

Architectural Review, The, May, 2002 by Michael Webb

STUDENT CENTRE, PASADENA, CALIFORNIA, USA

ARCHITECT

HODGETTS & FUNG

Over the past 26 years, the varied activities of Pasadena's Art Center College of Design have been confined within Craig Ellwood's black steel box, an acclaimed exercise in Miesian minimalism that is, regrettably, sealed off from an idyllic site and a generally benign climate. (Neil Jackson's recent book on Ellwood credits the design to his associate, Jim Tyler.) Richard Koshalek, the new president, intends to burst out of the box with an ambitious plan to expand the campus and move the Center's public education programmes and exhibitions to a former power station on the south edge of Pasadena. Gehry Partners have begun to design a spiral library and have also developed a master plan that includes classroom buildings by Alvaro Siza. As a first step in this programme of growth, Koshalek -- who has become the godfather of adventurous architecture in LA, working behind the scenes on a succession of important projects -- invited Craig Hodgetts and Ming Fung to design a new building for the students.

'We wanted to build a greater sense of community among the 13 different disciplines of the college,' says Koshalek, 'and the students expressed a desire to have greater interaction and a place to gather. I see Craig and Ming as heirs to the legacy of Charles and Ray Eames and I was sure they would have a lively dialogue with the users.'

Fifty of the 1500 students participated in a charrette, developing a programme for an outdoor space where they could hang out, display images and videos, organize events and even smoke without feeling like pariahs. The architects picked the site, on the steep slope between the main parking lot and the college, creating a way station on a route already defined by concrete steps and a wheelchair ramp. Their choice was validated by Gehry's plan, which makes this the hub of the expanded campus, conveniently accessible to all the buildings. A first design proved too costly to build. The second is tough, rational and permeable: a galvanized steel canopy that provides shelter from summer sun and winter rain but is open to the breezes, framing views of mountains and rolling hills and the city in the valley far below.

Muscular and scintillating, with a skewed geometry that provides a constantly shifting profile, the pavilion plays off the Ellwood like a David Smith sculpture beside a Donald Judd. From below, it appears as a truncated wedge that broadens and flares out in response to the contours of the site, and is cantilevered off three slender columns. From the parking lot it appears as a slash of silver glimpsed through the trees. A sliding entrance opens to an upper-level sitting area, with a built-in refreshment kiosk, lavatory, and gallery with plywood display walls. Steps lead down past concrete bleachers to an open space that could serve as a stage and a side terrace with vending machines.

Inspired by the college's focus on industrial design, the architects have created an interactive building that is full of kinetic elements. A door pivots to shut off the gallery. A trapezoidal window can be hand-cranked down and to one side to protect the sitting area from wind or rain. The kiosk is concealed behind a steel casing with a projecting counterweight that allows it to pivot open diagonally at a touch (Hodgetts likens it to a Lamborghini). The lining of the casing is painted a searing orange, signalling to the eye when it is open and enlivening the grey and silver palette of the pavilion. There is a built-in wall bench and moveable steel and concrete tables, but the interior is intended to be a tabula rasa -- a deliberate challenge to its inventive and lively users.

As a structure, it reveals all. Every element -- steel tubes and I-beams, corrugated roof and cladding, cement-board storage compartments and partitions -- is separately articulated, as are the industrial up-lights and sprinklers. A steel plate is bolted to one side of the bleachers to serve as a balustrade. Three tubes branch from a cantilevered I-beam like an acrobat on a high wire to support the roof at the west corner.

In contrast to the firm's UCLA Towell Library (AR June 1993) which was inspired by a circus tent and was designed to be lightweight and transportable (it will soon enjoy a second life as the school of architecture at Cal Poly), the new pavilion is massive, rooted, and should prove happily maintenance-free.

RELATED ARTICLE: Architect

Hodgetts & Fung, Los Angeles

Photographs

All photographs by Marvin Rand except No 2