Overview
Set among towering redwood trees, Kresge College at UC Santa Cruz is a postmodern campus originally designed by notable architect Charles Moore in the late 1960s. Despite this campus's quaint, dreamlike feel of an Italian village, it fails to meet the university's housing needs of today.
My team and I at TEF Design collaborated with Studio Gang to create spaces that house over 980 students, around 3x the capacity of the original campus. I studied and solved for fitting the maximum number of beds possible, while seamlessly integrating new social spaces within the existing fabric of the campus.
The Problem
The Solution
The Impact
Historical Significance of Kresge College
This campus at UCSC is historically significant in its postmodern design by Charles Moore, an architect best known for the Sea Ranch houses in Northern California. Inspired by the nature of hillside Italian villages, Kresge College's winding paths offer glimpses through dramatic openings into the lives of fellow students, social spaces, or the redwoods beyond. The design also nods to the art of set design, highlighting depth and architectural features with bold primary colors.
Historic photos by Morely Baer
Insufficient Housing Stock
Data from survey conducted by the University of California school system in 2020
Mapping Out Spatial Relationships
Translating a dense library of programmatic data into digestible diagrams was essential to communicate the story of the user experience on this campus.
Increasing Density While Maintaining the UX from the Street
Our challenge was to align with the language of the original Charles Moore design, but deliver a sufficient number of beds for the growing student population. Our team proposed rebuilding the structures with an added floor. By reversing the roof pitch and keeping the street facing facade at the original height, we maintain the original user experience from the street.
Designing Spaces for Practical and Social Use
In Building R8, I explored study and laundry room configurations that enhanced convenience and flexibility. Modeling in 3D using Revit allowed me to toggle between design options during live walkthroughs with the university stakeholders.
Existing Conditions
The prominent Building R3 (shown centered in the photo below) will be demolished to make way for a newly designed ramp and stair. This will increase accessibility to this lower plaza. Behind Building R3 sits Building R4, which will be extended to include a new wing of housing and study space that will stand as the focal point from this perspective.
Existing view of Building R3 from the lower plaza
Paper Modeling
Detailing the Selected Concept
Next, we studied the user experience of traveling from the street and between floors via ramps and the elevator. Our priority was to make the experience equally as pleasant as that of an able-bodied person. Looking for hiccups in secure keycard entry on each floor with these configurations was also an area of focus.
