project size:
2,400 square foot renovation

project context:
This project is in a historic building owned by a prominent school of Art and Design. Originally built in the 1940’s, it was a collection of buildings, including the former home of a supersonic wind tunnel, operated by Cal Tech. Through the 1940s and 50s the building functioned as a testing facility for Convair, Douglas, Lockheed, McDonnel and North American. In the 1960s, it was taken over by the Dacor Corporation, a high-end manufacturer of kitchen appliances. Dacor used the central structure as its main factory and eventually added five more work structures and showrooms. This collection of buildings was purchased by the school and synthesized in a great design in the early 2000’s. Part of that first renovation included a modest print making studio on the street facing, west side of the building. This is the space that was renovated in 2015 to hold a new center for the advanced study of typography. The given space to accomplish this was very constrained and full. It was a kind of infrastructural nexus for the existing building as well as the former print making studio, which required a tremendous amount of infrastructure and equipment. Additionally, multiple level changes and low ceilings were negotiated to actualize the new design.

project program / design approach:
Quoting the client:
As the Digital Age continues to increase our interaction with screens, typography, which has always been a core element of graphic design, has become increasingly vital to our visual culture. Consequently, we developed a plan to become a central and influential force in this burgeoning field by providing a dedicated space to advance the research, teaching and understanding of letter form design and typography. This center was designed to become a home and a catalyst for the enhanced study of typography and letter form design.

The program consists of gallery, workshops, archives, conference area, offices and support spaces. The project located in the modest footprint of the school’s former print making studio in the ‘wind-tunnel’ building needed to function as forum, lab, research center and think-tank. The production and display of letter form across scales and mediums became the primary driver for the design organization along with formal operations deployed to create new visual connections and display opportunities. The street front display window provided a unique opportunity for the display of letter form at an urban scale while the corridors leading to the space from the interior were transformed to display posters, books, and small-scale typographic works.