LMN Architects completed the eye-catching Interactive Learning Pavilion for the University of California, Santa Barbara in Santa Barbara, California.

LMN Architects is pleased to celebrate the completion of the Interactive Learning Pavilion at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The project provides contemporary instructional spaces over four floors in the center of the University’s iconic shoreline campus.

Construction has been completed on a new LMN designed classroom building located on a central site along Library Mall. The 90,000 SFT project is the first dedicated classroom building to be built on campus since 1967, offering 2,000 seats of instructional space across a variety of contemporary learning environments. The Interactive Learning Pavilion is woven into the life of the campus, integrating the characteristics of the local context to serve the entirety of the undergraduate population.

Comprised of two main volumes surrounding an east/west-running central circulation corridor, the project creates a natural flow between Library Mall and Science Walk, offering outdoor spaces that take advantage of the coastal campus environment. This open-air paseo interconnects the functions of the two masses, providing outdoor terraces, stairs, bridges, and collaboration spaces designed to encourage serendipitous interactions and collaboration among students and faculty. The internal layout of the building also plays a critical role in fostering an environment that promotes collaboration and learning. With a constant flow of activity throughout the day, the building’s many instructional spaces create a dynamic and engaging atmosphere that reflects the vibrant social and academic cultures of UC Santa Barbara and extends throughout the building’s vertically arranged public spaces.

The building’s exterior presents two distinct characters of expression, inspired by the unique geological and geographical conditions of its Southern California seaside context. A taut, vertical façade system comprised of high-performance-concrete panels and vertical windows clads the outward-facing elevations, establishing the building massing as clear framing elements along the adjacent campus spaces of Library Mall and Pardall Mall. Facing the internal public spaces, the building takes a radically different form by sculpting the shared exterior terraces with a more loose, organic formal language, driven by the efficient planning of the lecture halls within. The resulting formal and material qualities of these spaces take inspiration from the local vernacular architecture and the adjacent seaside cliffs, recalling the sedimentary sandstone in its curvilinear, polished concrete block walls.

Design: LMN Architects
Contractor: C.W. Driver
Photography: Tim Griffith, Patrick Price