Cal State LA, Student & Administrative Services Building | 2020-2021

Designer: Jenny Lee, Suejin Park, Ted Hyman, James Woolum. Mitra Memari, Brett Meyer, Ryan Velasco, Mark Piaia, Robert LaBrecque, Jerry Bryant, Joel Rosenberg, Jack Poulin, Olivia Lu-Hill, Elizabeth Gonzalez, Gregory Crouch, ZGF, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
Manufacturer: Cal State LA, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

The student-centric environmental graphic design in this project aims to celebrate CSULA's heritage, establish branding fostering a sense of place and school spirit, and integrate wayfinding elements to ensure a stress-free and engaging experience within the newly repurposed Student Services Building. The adaptive reuse of this nine-story, 218,000 SF building at Cal State LA creates a supportive and harmonious environment, bringing together various university administrative groups and providing essential spaces for students.

Originally constructed as a physical science building, the Student Services Building has undergone a comprehensive reprogramming to accommodate a diverse range of functions. These include a large lecture hall, conference rooms, workrooms, lounge settings, open offices, and ancillary spaces for divisions such as Student Life, Academic Affairs, Administration and Finance, University Advancement, and the President's Office.

The interior environment is specifically designed to address the challenges faced by students navigating an unfamiliar space. Employing healthcare design strategies, the Environmental Graphic Design (EGD) and wayfinding program aim to transform the journey through the building into a vibrant and easily navigable experience. This program highlights CSULA's spirit colors, heritage, and the city of Los Angeles.

The experience begins at the building's exterior, where a custom-designed mural spans the full length of the double-height, glass-enclosed lobby. This mid-century-inspired mosaic, depicting the LA skyline in a pixilated style using glazed bricks in campus colors, is visible from across the campus. Notably, the interior brickwork of the mosaic aligns perfectly with the exterior brickwork. As visitors enter, they discover that it is a three-story mural, cascading down to the basement level alongside the airy stair leading to the below-ground lecture hall.

Upon triage on the first floor, students are directed to the correct service area on the upper levels, where strategically placed graphics along interconnecting staircases encourage the use of stairs. Embracing Angeleno hiking culture, the stairway graphics provide step counts and paces from the Student Services Building to local hiking landmarks. Bold wayfinding signage on stair landings guides students to their final destinations.

A unique family of patterns and dimensionality is developed based on the angled, upward geometries of the monumental connecting stair at the building's core. This consistent design foundation is applied to privacy overlays on glass, oversized letters and numbers identifying offices and service windows, and floor numbers indicating each level. Scaled slightly taller than the average person's height, these elements are unmistakable at staircase landings and elevator lobbies.