Woodbury University required a new studio building to
complete the existing architecture department, which currently comprises five one-story buildings. Rios Clementi Hale Studios designed the new, two-story studio building to house architectural studios, critique spaces, support spaces, and a double-height multi-purpose room.
As the most visible building on the campus perimeter, the studio building mediates between the public view and private use of the campus.
The south façade is a horizontal, large-scale gesture to passing motorists that curves and wraps the building. Varying patterns of concrete masonry units compose this prominent wall. The stacked blocks create a large-scale, changing pattern of subtle shadings as the sunlight moves across the south façade during the day. Rios Clementi Hale Studios maintains continuity with the campus by using block colors and horizontal banding sympathetic to brick colors and patterning on existing buildings. Functionally, the south
façade filters sunlight and traffic sounds from the adjacent city streets and freeway.
While the south façade creates a buffer zone, the north façade opens the studio building to the existing department complex and provides a porous edge to a courtyard formed by the existing studio building to
the north. To connect the new structure to the existing complex, the north façade employs smaller-scale layering of vertical elements. The block pattern
consists of vertical stripes with alternating neutral colors. The guardrails at the balcony and open stairs
mimic the pattern with vertical wood polymer pickets fastened to steel supports. These exterior circulation
balconies and open stairs also animate the space.
In the bulk of the building, programmatic space for
architecture students extends across two floors. Insulated walls with gypsum drywall provide pin-up surfaces for students.
This interior finish stops short of the structural ceiling to expose the structural concrete masonry unit walls on the inside of the building. A double-height multi-purpose space provides additional critique space as well as space for lectures and exhibits.
Where possible, sustainable interior materials are
specified, including recycled glass ceramic tile, pressed paper and resin countertops and backsplashes, and recycled cotton acoustical insulation.