Interactive Learning Pavilion, University of California, Santa Barbara | Santa Barbara, California | 2023

Architects: LMN Architects
Lead Architect: Stephen Van Dyck
General Contractor: C.W. Driver Companies
Client: University of California, Santa Barbara
Photographers: Patrick Price and Tim Griffith

The first new classroom building to be built at UC Santa Barbara since 1967, the Interactive Learning Pavilion offers a new destination at the heart of campus for learning and gathering, centered on the notion of exploration and discovery. Spanning 90,000 square feet across two volumes bisected by a central open-air circulation corridor, the building includes spaces for active learning across five lecture halls, three large flat flexible rooms, and 20 classrooms, as well as informal collaboration and gathering in outdoor terraces and walkways.

Designed to address the campus’s pressing need for more general assembly instructional space due to growing enrollment, the building offers this and more. Turning the traditional classroom building model inside out, the Interactive Learning Pavilion places an open-air paseo at its core, capitalizing on Santa Barbara’s coastal environment to invite the campus to enter, explore, and linger in its exterior gathering spaces. Multiple access points and the absence of a traditional front door seamlessly integrates the building into campus and encourages a natural flow through it to Library Mall and Science Walk.

The building’s dynamic presence of curvilinear volumes connected by perforated aluminum walkways with an everchanging interplay of light and shadow complements the constant hum of activity in the building day to night. Just as the form itself is intended to be in and of its place, the building’s exterior materials are similarly inspired by the unique topography of the region. A taut, vertical façade of high-performance-concrete panels and vertical windows clads the outward-facing elevations, while the internal-facing walls sculpt the shared exterior terraces with a more organic formal language of polished concrete block walls.

The gradient of colors and textures in the concrete block recalls the geologic layering of nearby seaside cliffs, while the material itself nods to nearby campus buildings and local vernacular architecture. LEED Gold certified, the Interactive Learning Pavilion addresses sustainability through passive design strategies and incorporating locally sourced materials. The project also supports the campus's commitment to sustainable transportation by extending the pedestrian district, reconfiguring bike paths, and adding bike parking spaces.

Reflecting the university’s forward-looking pedagogical approach, the program of the Interactive Learning Pavilion emphasizes active learning and team-based approaches with tiered auditoriums, flat-floor rooms, and small flexible classrooms that address diverse learning styles and meet the needs of various campus departments. With 4,000+ people moving through the building during each class change, the porous design helps streamline the tides of user flow while also offering places in the paseo spaces on all four levels for informal collaboration that invite people to linger.

One of the only campus buildings where public space is elevated above ground level, the Interactive Learning Pavilion rewards exploration across its four levels with expansive campus and ocean views accessible to all. The building celebrates its spectacular natural setting while expanding UCSB’s classroom capacity and establishing a new place for social interaction and innovation.