The performance stage adjacent to the San Diego Mesa College Student Services Center is constructed of Forest Stewardship Council (https://us.fsc.org) certified ipe wood. Stormwater run-off is captured in hidden grates under the decking. The drainage system directs all the run-off to a retention basin on the eastern edge of the site prior to it entering the city storm drains. The design collaboration between the San Diego Community College District, the landscape architects, the architects and the civil engineers was all about creating wonderful "places and spaces" for students.

Mesa College is part of the San Diego Community College District (SDCCD), which is now more than a decade into a major capital improvement program for the four-campuses in Southern California. The program, funded by several voter-approved bonds totaling more than $1.5 billion, includes nearly 100 new instructional and career training facilities, student and public safety enhancement projects, parking facilities and campus-wide infrastructure projects.

Quick hand sketches were useful in helping lay out the spaces and site functions, such as the grassy slope, the grand stairway, the positioning of the lighting, the cypress trees leading down the hill and onto the plaza, seating pods, drainage and the stage area.

"We have opened a number of extraordinary new buildings with state of the art instructional equipment," said SDCCD Chancellor Constance Carroll. "As a result, our students are extremely well educated and well prepared to either transfer to a four year university or enter the workforce."

One of these projects is a bold and innovative design by San Diego-based MLA Design Studio-Landscape Architects and ARCHITECTS hanna gabriel wells (HGW) for a new Student Services Center, which won an "Orchid Design Award' from the San Diego Architectural Foundation, and an "Award of Merit' from the American Society of Landscape Architects.

The narrow and steep landscape slope between the new Mesa College Student Services Center (left) and the retained I-300 Building (center) had uninviting switchback stairs connecting the lower parking area to the upper campus.

In the words of the ASLA jury, the 85,000-square-foot building and site works set on a steep slope at the edge of Mesa College "is elegant and works well with the (surrounding) architecture."

The new Student Services Center is also environmentally friendly, achieving LEED Gold certification. Water efficiency was achieved by stormwater collection and use of drought-tolerant plants and low-volume irrigation. Clean power for the project was drawn from the campus photovoltaic system.

Quick hand sketches were useful in helping lay out the spaces and site functions, such as the grassy slope, the grand stairway, the positioning of the lighting, the cypress trees leading down the hill and onto the plaza, seating pods, drainage and the stage area.

Grade Changes and Tight Budgets
As with all projects, there were challenges. To address a 50-foot grade difference on the narrow site, MLA and HGW used the building's retaining walls and terraces to stabilize the slope and to create a series of spaces for students to gather, including an upper-level cafe and amphitheater, and a lower-level performance area. Another challenge was a campus maintenance staff stretched thin by a tight budget. Maintenance strongly pushed for incorporating more hardscapes over softscapes to ease maintenance requirements. Also, the staff wanted any installed softscapes to have minimal plantings to ease maintenance requirements.

Fescue grass mounds with sculptural Chinese Flame trees direct pedestrian flow through the lower plaza.

The landscape architects pressed for a balance on the hardscape/softscape issue, pointing out that large expanses of hardscape would of course capture too much heat and create a distracting glare for students viewing the space from the levels above. For a solution, MLA developed a graphic banding pattern in the hardscape to complement a planting scheme that breaks up the lower plaza and allows the steep slope to spill onto the lower plaza.

 

To address the 50-foot grade difference, MLA Design Studio-Landscape Architects and ARCHITECTS hanna gabriel wells developed a grading study model that used the building's retaining walls and terraces to stabilize the slope and integrate the building and the grand stairs with the sloping landscape. A hydraulic mulch of fescue grasses stabilized the slopes. The healthy eucalyptus, loquat, honeysuckle and Rhus were retained. The grand stairs connect the campus central mall (top), the landscape terraces and the lower plaza.

Also a planting mix of fescue grasses"?uFestuca rubra communta (Chewing's fescue), Festuca longifloia ("hard' fescue, a grass native to Britain's Channel Islands and Southern Devon) and Festuca ovina ("sheep's' fescue, a densely tufted perennial) with a hydraulic mulch ("Flexterra' growth medium) to allow quick stabilization of the steep slopes.

The use of a new Calsense ET2000 irrigation controller with radio remote receiver allows the maintenance staff to connect the site with other campus areas, as well as monitor the irrigation system remotely from the district office.

The stainless steel handrail design provides visual interest, and minimizes skateboarders using the rails.

HGW's concept for the building, which houses 16 different departments, visually connects all occupants through an open central atrium. HGW and MLA created visual flow from the atrium and adjacent plaza by using the same terrazzo-like concrete banding paving and pole light fixtures in both the exterior and interior spaces.

To meet the low-maintenance requirements, interior plants were replaced with dried tall willow branch arrangements and basalt columns set in 18" and 4' diameter pots respectively to reinforce the vertical height of the atrium.

This view looking north down the stairs shows the mid-level terraces and the lower welcome and performance plaza. The half-elliptical retention basin for stormwater (lower left) extends to the campus loop road. The basin has heavy plantings of Festucia, Rhaphiolepis indica "Clara' Indian Hawthorn and a few Calif. sycamores. Drought tolerant plants and an efficient irrigation system provided a 50% saving in exterior water usage.

Design Features and Solutions
Gradual ramps, roll-up curbs and terraces allow the numerous spaces of the upper and lower plaza to flow together. Stormwater run-off is captured in hidden grates under the lower plaza ipe wood performance stage; a drainage system directs all the run-off to a retention basin on the eastern edge of the project, prior to it entering the city storm drains.

A space, inspired by Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx, helps address the building grade challenge and provides visual interest for the upper floors while allowing natural light into the building. Gravel and locally-quarried boulders, along with Japanese black pines in 4' dia. pots highlight the space. Some flats of Dymondia margaretae groundcover is being introduced to the mulched earth.

Adjacent to the performance stage, a hub of impromptu student activity and formal staged events, are landscape concrete seat pods and meandering concrete seat walls that encourage student interactions. Many of the seating areas were designed with slots or gaps to add visual impact and discourage skateboarding.

Boulders and rock beds, reflective of the adjacent canyons, were specified for visual interest and for their low maintenance requirements. Crape myrtle "Tuscarora' multi-trunk trees decorate the eastern edge of the Mesa College Student Services Center Building.

The hundred tons of boulders and rocks used for the site were carefully chosen from local quarries to match the existing canyon textures and colors of Mesa College.

Fifteen towering Italian cypress run down the west side of the stairway and extend across the lower plaza. The prominent tree in the planter (right) with the block seat walls is a coral tree.

Barney Matsumoto, a partner at MLA, said the award-winning effort benefitted from "many quick sketches on napkins" throughout the project with HGW and Snipes Dye Civil Engineers to ensure the design detailing and grading concept melded seamlessly. It was important to create a "flow" through the indoor and outdoor spaces.

Matsumoto notes that "flashy software" like Photoshop and Sketch-up are great design tools for landscape architects, but said the "intuitive aspect of hand drawing to work out the detailing was crucial to the (design) space making."

Design Team
San Diego Community College District: Lance Lareau
Landscape Architects
MLA Design Studio - Landscape Architects
Barney Matsumoto, partner in charge
Caroline Lee, partner
Architects
ARCHITECT hanna gabreil wells
Randy Hanna, James Gabreil, Matt Wells, partners
Sean Chen and Frank Sanchez, project architects
Civil Engineers
Snipes-Dye Associates
Bill Dick
Electrical Engineers: Michael Wall Engineering
Structural Engineers: KPFF Consulting Engineers
Mechanical Engineers: McParlane & Associates
Irrigation Consultant: Sweeney + Associates
LEED: Drew George Partners Inc.