USC Shoah Foundation - Institute for Visual History and Education | Los Angeles, California | 2018

Architects: Belzberg Architects
Client: USC Shoah Foundation
Photographers: Bruce Damonte

Design Team: Hagy Belzberg, Lindsey Sherman-Contento, Cory Taylor, Ashley Coon, Adrian Cortez, Barry Gartin, Aaron Leshtz, Corie Saxman, Jennifer Wu, J. Joshua Hanley, and Alexis Roohani
General Contractor: Clune Construction Company

The new Global Headquarters of the USC Shoah Foundation – Institute for Visual History and Education is a conduit to the Institute's growing collection of more than 55,000 video testimonies by witnesses of genocide and enables its nearly 100-person staff to realize its global mission: "to develop empathy, understanding, and respect through testimony." The project relocates the Institute from a corner of the ground floor to the entire top floor of the Leavey Library at the University of Southern California, more than doubling their dedicated space. This expansion allows the Institute to scale their operations and outreach while creating a public access point for the first time. The design embodies a paradigm shift for the organization but is careful not to disrupt the established campus architectural aesthetic. Instead, visitors and staff are met with an immersive, didactic environment that anticipates the needs of the USC Shoah Foundation.

The headquarters aims to convey the narrative of the Institute and its efforts while also facilitating the discovery, dissemination, study, preservation, and continued collection of testimonies. We immediately establish the immersive and interactive nature of the learning environment. In stark contrast to the rest of the building, visitors are greeted by glowing, shapely pillars and walls with interactive touchscreens that invite exploration of the collection. Whether at these consoles, New Dimensions in Testimony (a life-size, interactive display of a Holocaust survivor), or the new VR experience in development, the space integrates unique digital access points, allowing individual or group learning and remote content curation.

Tours of the Institute are critical to sharing its message – what they accomplish and how. To facilitate them, a skewed processional corridor was established from end to end. Overhead, a faceted dropped ceiling datum distinguishes work areas from circulation space, hiding large conduits discovered during demolition. We exposed the ductwork above the path, used an acoustic spray treatment to minimize disturbance, and up-lit this zone in contrast to the faceted acoustic system used over the workspaces. The change in floor-to-ceiling height is a subtle spatial queue that helps alleviate the emotional tension of scholars and staff when they step away from their work while simultaneously acting as a wayfinding system.

We incorporated dual functionality and flexibility where possible to achieve hyper-efficiency. Moveable walls transform "Think Tank" booth seating and, more dramatically, the junction between the Main Conference Room, the Instructional and Study Room, and Kitchen, which opens to become a 100-seat Town Hall area wired for multi-media presentations. Conference tables are modular, and whiteboard walls are used in several areas. Workstations are organized into neighborhoods that vary in size and geometry, each with a central meeting table, eliminating the need for more dedicated meeting space and encouraging collaboration and cross-pollination between scholars and staff.

The didactic dualism of the new headquarters enables the Institute to build stronger relationships internally, with the international academic community, and the broader public, allowing them to grow and adapt to suit the demands of their ongoing mission.