client:    ArtCenter College of Design

 

type:    educational

 

location:    Pasadena, California

 

size:    31,000 sq ft

 

status:    under construction / scheduled to open Spring 2024

 

team:    darin johnstone, sandra hutchings

howard chen, sean davis, dennis lee, matt liese, long pan, kaita saito, sue choi, te-kuei huang

 

consultants:    labib funk + associates, novus design studio, simpson gumpertz & heger, kgm lighting, antonio acoustics, hka elevator consultant, zc sustainability

 

project manager:    parthenon

 

general contractor:    del amo construction

 

darin johnstone architects

ArtCenter Mullin Transportation Design Center

Fall 2023

 

The Mullin Transportation Design Center (MTDC), future home to ArtCenter College of Design undergraduate and graduate Transportation Design programs, will be located at the center of the college’s south campus, within the historic ‘wind tunnel’ building at 950 South Raymond Avenue in Pasadena. With the future in mind, Darin Johnstone Architects is working with the Transportation Design departments to conceptualize vehicle intensive spaces to facilitate research, experimentation, and cutting-edge design. The project supports a paradigm shift from the last 20 years of transportation design at ArtCenter, which focused on scale models, towards facilities that replicate the experiences of professional design studios.

 

The existing wind tunnel volume presents an amazing opportunity for full scale vehicular access, and it contains a poetic link to the history of transportation design.  Through the 1940s and 50s, the barrel vaulted, 85’ wide by 220’ long and 43’ clear high space, was home to a supersonic wind tunnel operated by Cal Tech as a testing facility for Convair, Douglas, Lockheed, McDonnel and North American. This birthplace of modern aircraft is an ideal setting for speculations on the future of Transportation Design. Within the wind tunnel, a renovation is planned to convert the existing 18,000 s.f space to hold 31,000 s.f. of specialized labs, classrooms, exhibition spaces, studios, and offices.

 

The new program nearly doubles the effective square footage of the wind tunnel, creating a figure ground problem that DJA worked to take advantage of. The east side of the project, which holds studios and offices on two levels, is a simple bar laminated to the edge of the wind tunnel. The remainder of the diagram is comprised of hovering elements that float in the space and shape larger voids. A flex lecture space and viewing deck on the mezzanine level float above a fabrication studio and Vehicle Architecture Lab on level one. A curved ramping gallery connecting to Level Two slips around and floats over the Art and Process Lab framing the upper division Undergraduate Studio that completes the hover diagram. The wind tunnel, originally designed to simulate motion by testing objects fixed in space, is being converted to accept actual motion.

 

The interplay of time and the evolution of design processes related to transportation and aviation influence the architecture. A taut, smooth, aesthetic of strange lightness hovers in contrast to the rough lovely wooden vessel of the original wind tunnel.

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Joshua White/JWPictures.com

ArtCenter Mullin Transportation Design Center

Fall 2023

The Mullin Transportation Design Center (MTDC), future home to ArtCenter College of Design undergraduate and graduate Transportation Design programs, will be located at the center of the college’s south campus, within the historic ‘wind tunnel’ building at 950 South Raymond Avenue in Pasadena. With the future in mind, Darin Johnstone Architects is working with the Transportation Design departments to conceptualize vehicle intensive spaces to facilitate research, experimentation, and cutting-edge design. The project supports a paradigm shift from the last 20 years of transportation design at ArtCenter, which focused on scale models, towards facilities that replicate the experiences of professional design studios.

 

The existing wind tunnel volume presents an amazing opportunity for full scale vehicular access, and it contains a poetic link to the history of transportation design.  Through the 1940s and 50s, the barrel vaulted, 85’ wide by 220’ long and 43’ clear high space, was home to a supersonic wind tunnel operated by Cal Tech as a testing facility for Convair, Douglas, Lockheed, McDonnel and North American. This birthplace of modern aircraft is an ideal setting for speculations on the future of Transportation Design. Within the wind tunnel, a renovation is planned to convert the existing 18,000 s.f space to hold 31,000 s.f. of specialized labs, classrooms, exhibition spaces, studios, and offices.

 

The new program nearly doubles the effective square footage of the wind tunnel, creating a figure ground problem that DJA worked to take advantage of. The east side of the project, which holds studios and offices on two levels, is a simple bar laminated to the edge of the wind tunnel. The remainder of the diagram is comprised of hovering elements that float in the space and shape larger voids. A flex lecture space and viewing deck on the mezzanine level float above a fabrication studio and Vehicle Architecture Lab on level one. A curved ramping gallery connecting to Level Two slips around and floats over the Art and Process Lab framing the upper division Undergraduate Studio that completes the hover diagram. The wind tunnel, originally designed to simulate motion by testing objects fixed in space, is being converted to accept actual motion.

 

The interplay of time and the evolution of design processes related to transportation and aviation influence the architecture. A taut, smooth, aesthetic of strange lightness hovers in contrast to the rough lovely wooden vessel of the original wind tunnel.

client:    ArtCenter College of Design

 

type:    educational

 

location:    Pasadena, California

 

size:    31,000 sq ft

 

status:    bidding / scheduled to open Fall 2023

 

team:    darin johnstone, sandra hutchings

howard chen, sean davis, dennis lee, matt liese, long pan, kaita saito, sue choi, te-kuei huang

 

consultants:    labib funk + associates, novus design studio, simpson gumpertz & heger, kgm lighting, antonio acoustics, hka elevator consultant, zc sustainability

 

project manager:    swinnerton

 

general contractor:    del amo construction

 

darin johnstone architects

Photo Credit: Joshua White/JWPictures.com

ArtCenter 1111 Level 4

Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman

Alumni Center

October 2018

The Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman Alumni Center is designed to span across the middle of the fourth level of ArtCenter’s 1111 South Arroyo parkway building. Situated between views of the city to the east and views of the evolving south campus to the west the new center features a dedicated alumni gallery, conference center and lounge. The spaces, physically and visually connected to the elevator lobby, are flexibly designed to accommodate multiple types of alumni events. The center itself locates each Alum within the campus and within their larger network of peers.

 

In the Alumni Gallery space a 25’ x 8’ digital touch screen is programmed to contain an interactive virtual alumni gallery encompassing work of distinguished Alumni through the decades and around the globe. The glass curtain wall that separates the conference center and lounge from the elevator lobby has a translucent color screened film with the Alumni Center signage and the iconic ArtCenter ‘dot’. The space also features lighting designed by ArtCenter Alum Scott Yu of Vode Lighting, and furniture designed by ArtCenter Alum Nolen Niu.

 

ArtCenter College of Design quote:

‘The Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman Alumni Center provides the College’s global alumni network of 20,000 artists and designers a dedicated gallery, lounge and conference room to convene when they return to campus. Whether you’re visiting to participate in an AlumNetwork panel discussion, FullCircle event, Storyboard night, Supper Club or introducing potential partners to the College, the Alumni Center will serve as an important programmatic gathering space—not to mention a constant source of inspiration.’

client:  art center college of design

 

type:  educational

 

location:  pasadena, ca

 

size:  5,000 sq ft

 

status:  built

 

team:  darin johnstone, sandra hutchings, rob ettenger, matt liese, dennis lee, deysi blanco, adam fujioka, mitchel bennett

 

consultants:  john a. martin and associates, turpin & rattan engineering, kaplan gehring mccarroll architectural lighting, antonio acoustics, sunwest electric inc.

 

interaction design (alumni gallery):  downstream

 

project manager:  gkk works

 

general contractor:  halsted construction

 

photo credit:  joshua white / jwpictures.com

 

darin johnstone architects

Photo Credit: Joshua White/JWPictures.com