Architecture

The Fish Interfaith Center and Wallace Chapel is a richly layered building with a unique response to the imagery and spirituality of the program. The concept for the chapel was to develop a composition of space that transports visitors from the material world (campus) into the spiritual realm. The path into this realm incorporates a series of architectural and artistic elements that reinforce this transitional experience. The symbology used in this journey, however, had to comfortably accommodate people of many different beliefs. To achieve this vision, AC Martin collaborated with five prominent artists to create a metaphorically significant experience beyond that which architecture alone could create.

The journey begins outside the chapel with a 60’ light tower that glows at night with lantern-like illumination from backlit marble. This lighted beacon acts as a focal point, drawing the visitor into a pathway that integrates a three-part work of art featuring swirling blue lines in the floor, flowing together forming a musical score.

The main sanctuary is voluminous, bathed in filtered light highlighting the altar. The curved walls of the sanctuary were designed to make the experience of being in this space unlike any other place on campus. Above the altar is a golden-bronze metal sculpture portraying the setting moon and the rising sun. Light entering from the skylight and art glass windows interweaves with interior lighting to play upon the sculpture's metallic surface. The exterior is sheathed in golden collegiate brick providing a contextual relationship to the campus buildings and to the historic setting of Old Towne Orange.

Located at the northeast corner, the solar fountain marks the opening of a tranquil courtyard. The courtyard is divided into two main spaces, one representative of earthly life and the other representing eternity.

Our team worked with Orange County on the restoration and renovation of the Heroes Hall Veterans Museum, located at the Orange County Fairgrounds. The 4,800 sf Veterans Museum serves as the center piece of OC Fair’s history. We utilized the building’s original structure while ensuring it’s structurally sound and advance. The renovation design allows for plenty of natural lighting to take in the exhibits, as well as view the OC Fairgrounds from the museum. The five-sided pillar at the entrance of the Medal of Honor Plaza has a plaque on each side to commemorate World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, and Iraq War. The plaques were commissioned in 1988 by AMVETS (American Veterans), before moving to their place at the Veterans Museum.

The design of a new facility for the Horticulture program at Las Positas College is currently underway. The new Horticulture Facility includes classrooms, labs, offices, resource areas, and a greenhouse. The butterfly roof canopy of the new classroom building at the Las Positas Horticulture Facility, reminiscent of a pergola, serves as a welcoming entrance for staff, students, and guests as well as an outdoor learning space, gathering space, and public event space. The form of the butterfly roof highlights the beauty of the surrounding hills and helps blend the new building with its site. With the collaborative design process, the new Horticulture Facility has achieved many teaching opportunities for the students. Integrating learning with the built environment, the facility has many different types of fencing to serve as a teaching tool for the Horticulture students, while also still providing required separation and security.

The facility boasts over 1.7 million s.f. under one roof, including 30,000 s.f. of offices, and is over ½ mile in length with in excess of 270 truck dock positions. The site includes a nearly 1.5:1 ratio of trailer storage stalls to dock doors. Multiple ramps allow for flatbed trailer loading throughout. At the time of construction, the project was the largest single concrete tilt‐up distribution building in the world. In addition, tilt‐up panels at the high‐bay areas extended 75’ from top of footings to top of parapet, making them some of the tallest concrete panels in the world without intermediate floors. Crawler cranes were necessary to pick the panels.

The design of Fertitta Hall reinforces USC's mission of educating, recruiting and retaining the best and the brightest entrepreneurs and business leaders. The focus remained on creating a facility that is intensely collaborative and interactive utilizing the latest technology to support their unique educational pedagogy as well as provide abundant support spaces creating the student-centric environment with social gathering, food services, lounges, and study space.

The building adds 104,000 square feet of building space, meeting all instructional needs for the undergraduate program. This includes 21 classrooms, two of which are active learning, a 150-seat lecture hall, 50 breakout rooms, an improved Experiential Learning Center, and a library/collaboration area. Also included is a café, lounge, offices for the undergraduate program and the admissions office for the Marshall School of Business. The addition of Fertitta Hall resolves the issues of a lack of meeting space and individual and group study space and will allow students to be engaged between classes and after hours. 

Fertitta Hall provides significant outdoor space via an outdoor courtyard, shared with the adjacent Graduate School of Business, as well as gathering spaces outside on Childs Way for the students to meet, interact, and study. The building is certified LEED Gold, reinforcing the social responsibility mission of the school. 

We provided planning, entitlements, design, bridging documentation, and construction support services for the development of a 2.38 acre site at the airport perimeter in the City of Costa Mesa. The project consisted of a single story, 25,230 sf building that encompassed administrative offices, storage facilities and all the vehicle/heavy equipment maintenance shops for the Airport Maintenance Group. The site also contains ancillary facilities including a single-bay vehicle wash facility, fueling station, and parking for employee and airport vehicles.

We provided master planning, entitlements, bid package, and oversaw the bidding and selection of a Design-build General Contractor for Lineage on their new Colton, CA, distribution facility. The overall facility is 420,000 sf, and includes a cross-dock area, a partitioned convertible and freezer area, banana ripening rooms, and minimal dry storage. Temperatures vary from -20 degrees to ambient.

The iconic, Los Angeles City Hall was designed and built by the Austin, Parkinson and AC Martin team in 1928. The 300,000 SF, 32-story building is faced with grey California granite and grey terra cotta, the most popular façade materials at the time. The concrete in its tower was made with sand from each of California’s 58 counties and water from its 21 historical missions. The structure is comprised of two wings with a 452-feet high central tower, based on the purported shape of the “Mausoleum of Mausolus.”

Steeped in symbolism, images of Mulholland’s water works – the Los Angeles Aqueduct, are burnished into its bronze doors amalgamated from California ores. A golden ship in the floor of the great Rotunda symbolizes Spain’s discovery of California. Carrera marble is used decoratively throughout, along with painted murals showing scenes of Hollywood movie-making. The cornerstone was laid by the Native Sons of the Golden West and holds a Los Angeles telephone directory, and signatures of personnel in the mayor’s office.

At the building’s dedication, a beacon bolted to the pinnacle tower’s pyramidal roof was illuminated with a telegraphed signal from Calvin Coolidge. The beacon was later named for Charles Lindbergh.

Los Angeles City Hall Seismic Rehabilitation & Renovation

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Headquarters (renamed the John Ferraro Building in 2000) provided a central headquarters complex that consolidated eleven scattered offices of one of the nation’s largest public utilities on a 13-acre hillside site which formed the westerly terminus of the Los Angeles Civic Center at the time of completion. The 17-story office building served as a complete “working city” for 4,000 civil service employees with a base structure accommodating 2,400 cars. The typical office floor is approximately an acre in size, with a total of approximately 1,635,000 SF. A helistop located on the penthouse level faciliated the Department’s field inspections.

The MAG-LITE headquarters consists of a 30-acre, 750,000 sf facility employing 1,200 people and housing the administrative offices, machining, fabrication, finishing, assembly, warehousing, shipping and receiving functions for the flashlight manufacturer.