Two projects designed by HMC Architects received 2022 Community College Facility Coalition (CCFC) Professional Design Awards. Antelope Valley College Sage Hall received an Award of Merit in the Growth category and the College of Marin Integrated Learning Resources Center received an Award of Honor in the Project in Design category.
Antelope Valley College Sage Hall
Award of Merit, Growth Category
AVC is a critical educational resource in a region with higher-than-average poverty and unemployment rates. Sage Hall plays an important part in the college’s mission, providing a friendly, helpful environment for learning with a mission of removing obstacles to success and giving students the tools they need to thrive. At its heart, AVC’s Sage Hall provides students with a supportive, collaborative space where a diverse community of learners can discover, develop, and stay on track, reducing drop-out rates and leading to success. The design team worked closely with the dean of rhetoric and literacy in a series of workshops, from the broad strokes of programming and site planning to focused meetings on furniture. At each step, the dean was a tireless advocate for the college’s new vision, helping the design team liberate the users to see new possibilities. Key goals drove our design: remove the stigma of seeking help, make the Academic Commons visible and easily accessible, and design diverse environments to support both students and faculty and improve their experience.
College of Marin Integrated Learning Resources Center
Award of Honor, Project in Design category
As the unifying heart of campus, the Learning Resources Center fosters connection among a diverse body of students, faculty, staff, and community members. In collaboration with Group 4 Architecture, the LRC is designed to create generous, natural indoor-outdoor connections to the Creek, Glade, and Mt. Tam. The building is set into the hillside, which generously slopes around it on both its west and north façades. This deep integration of architecture and landscape creates a series of plazas, decks, and terraces that can support individual, group, and even campus-wide events. Interior spaces including the event space, wellness center, café, and campus reading room have direct outdoor connections, taking advantage of Marin’s temperate climate. The building utilizes passive design strategies to create a high-performance Net Zero Energy Ready design. As a result, the anticipated building energy use intensity (EUI) is 75 percent better than the national median benchmark EUI of 104. Water efficient plumbing fixtures target 20 percent indoor water use reduction, while drought-tolerant vegetation and irrigation controls target 54 percent outdoor water reduction.
The CCFC works to provide leadership in legislative advocacy and deliver critical information, education, and training on facilities issues for community college districts and their business partners to enhance student learning. The awards will be presented at a special ceremony during the CCFC 29th Annual Conference on September 8 in Sacramento, California. To learn more, visit the CCFC website.
