Architecture

The 2,209 SF updated basement level of the Gates-Thomas Laboratory Building houses Professor Aaron Ames’ Advanced Mechanical Bipedal Experimental Robotics (AMBER) Lab. This lab is equipped for students to design, build, and test robots and prosthetics with the goal of achieving human-like bipedal robotic walking. The mission of the AMBER lab is to translate these walking capabilities to robotic assistive devices.

This renovation required upgraded mechanical and electrical systems and additional acoustical treatment in the ceilings. The lab includes two long treadmills a 144 SF rotary walking area for bipedal robots, and updated 
design stations.

Reimagining a traditional educational institution, the 42,000 SF renovation of the second floor of McCarthy Hall introduces daylight and a sense of place to the Biology and Geology departments. Spaces include department offices, teaching and research labs, a cadaver lab, and an animal facility. Open, informal learning space throughout the floor provides students with areas to study, meet, and learn. Hallways, niches, and open space reach to the exterior in order to drive natural light as far into the center as possible. Integrated display cabinets and full-height glass walls with views into the classrooms reinforce the goal to put science on display.

The Swenson Family Hall of Engineering, located in the Keck Center for Science and Engineering at Chapman University, is envisioned not only as the campus epicenter for innovative thinking but as an inclusive social hub where cross-pollination of ideas can occur between faculty members and students. At the heart of the School is a Design/Create/Innovate (DCI Lab), a makerspace for experimentation and collaboration space for idea incubation. This main space includes a series of operable partitions and modular design that allow for a flexible and adaptable space supporting collaboration, presentation, and showcase events. Upper floors include faculty office space and instructional teaching labs, including: active learning classrooms; a circuits and structures lab; and  a signals and cyber lab.

The space occupies three consecutive floors:  the first level designed to be a collaborative student space traversed by a gallery or ‘ideation path’ connecting to the existing building; the second floor that includes labs, study alcoves, and research pods; and the third floor dedicated to faculty workspaces and meeting rooms.

The ideation path is a wide hallway that bifurcates the lower level of the Engineering school. This gallery path connects the collaborative student spaces, the dean’s suite, and the fabrication labs through an angular walkway covered in a metal mesh ceiling. The path features views into workspaces and instructional spaces through glass walls and large operable partitions.

The 74,780 SF Science Building on the Azusa Pacific University campus includes the renovation of the existing Wynn Science Building as well as the construction of a new teaching and research laboratory facility. The design creates meeting spaces throughout the building where students and faculty can gather, fostering teamwork and community. The objective was to create a science center that consolidates and increases teaching space for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology and to provide an emphasis on fundamental research. 

The building defines a new gateway to the campus with a glowing façade of channel glass, establishing a unifying and defining landmark for Azusa Pacific University. The building is organized around a central courtyard that provides daylight to interior spaces, and captures usable open space for a variety of campus and community based activities. The glazing on the façade allows filtered daylight into the lab spaces while at night the interior lights emit a diffused glow.

The overall organization of the building follows a repetitive unit of measurement used for classrooms and laboratory spaces, providing flexibility when future modifications becomes necessary. The master plan for the secondary campus is reinforced by defining the edge of a new campus quad and garden. The building has been certified LEED® Gold.

AC Martin led a multi-consultant team for this new administrative building on the University of California, Davis campus to house the Mathematics and Statistics Departments. The project provides 64,000 gross square feet of office and educational space in an efficient core layout for use by various departments as needed, and includes academic offices, conference rooms, statistics lab, and a large seminar room for guest speakers, presentations and public events.

The architecture of the building was conceived to reinforce the pedestrian nature of the UC Davis campus, with appropriately spaced windows, and a textured facade. The building massing was designed to work with an existing stand of pines to the southeast, creating a plaza and gathering space that links the main entry to a primary north/south circulation path. Landscaping and the building edge also reinforce an existing major pedestrian path to the south.

AC Martin provided architectural design services for this 19,200 gross square foot addition to the existing Academic Surge Building, chosen due to its proximity to other campus buildings with similar research interests. 6,500 gross square feet are dedicated to the Watershed Science Research Center to provide laboratory and support space for cross-disciplinary researchers and students who are engaged in research connected to the Bay-Delta and related tributaries. The remaining 10,800 gross square feet was constructed as unfinished shell space for later development by the campus.

The Center will be used as a biological laboratory, an analytic chemistry laboratory and a sedimentology laboratory. Support spaces will include a conference and meeting room, student offices and faculty offices. The new facility gives the program a physical identity for State and Federal agencies who share a partnership in the science of watershed research.

Specialized Labs:
• Center for Watershed Sciences
• Biology
• Analytic chemistry
• Sedimentology
• Computers

AC Martin provided architectural and engineering services for this 95,000 square foot Molecular and Life Sciences Center. The building houses biology, biochemistry, and chemistry research as well as lower and upper division teaching laboratories. Fumehoods and mechanical exhaust systems are used extensively throughout the building. In addition to an increase in capacity by 138 full-time equivalent students in teaching laboratories, 160 graduate research stations, and 46 faculty offices, this project provides the necessary relief space to permit the progressive renovation of the existing Peterson Hall 2 and 3 science buildings to proceed. Special lab functions include cell/molecular/physiology research; fluorescent microscopy center; immunology; genetics, biochemistry and chemistry.

Located on the northwest edge of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s main campus. the building houses the departments of mechanical, aerospace, civil, materials, industrial, and biomedical engineering, as well as Dean’s offices. The design includes laboratories, lecture halls, design rooms, support spaces, and faculty offices.

The interior spaces are equipped with technology capable of adapting to a yet undetermined future demand. The finishes include stained concrete floors, wood paneling at the elevator cores in the entry lobby, sliding bulletin boards with a variety of colorful cork, custom light sconces and exposed ceilings. The result is a colorful, welcoming and somewhat unconventional space; one that encourages thinking and working across disciplines.

The massing of Engineering IV is a response to site constraints, opportunities—including optimal solar orientation and views—and programmatic needs. The site is located at the terminus of a significant pedestrian axis connecting Engineering 13, the new ATL building and the proposed Bonderson building. The entry to Engineering IV was located to respond to this axis and draw people to the building. The building is formed to complete a landscaped plaza bordered by the ATL and Bonderson engineering buildings. The plaza is envisioned as the heart and soul of the interdisciplinary engineering precinct, a dynamic space where students can move their projects outdoors for testing and display, creating a synergistic relationship with the neighboring engineering buildings.  

The building is designed as two intersecting volumes, each informed by a different site condition. The westernmost volume contains program spaces that require high bay space. The eastern volume is angled away from the first to create a welcoming entry court and to acknowledge the curving of Highland Avenue, which borders the site to the north. A series of large glass double doors on the first floor will encourage engineering activities to spill into the courtyard and plaza.

University of Southern California's Ronald Tutor Hall is a five-story, 103,000 GSF engineering facility that accommodates undergraduate and graduate studies in information technology, bioengineering, and nanotechnology. The flexible space features labs and research areas extending from a central-core plan as well as the Viterbi Museum.

The modular lab spaces are modeled after those at national government laboratories to give students and professors the most current configurations and equipment. Elements particular to the university environment include elevated safety levels and collaborative work areas. The building defines a new campus yard and identity for the campus with a grand entry lobby opening onto the main landscaped courtyard envisioned as an outdoor academic court to encourage and foster collaboration.

The 106,000-SF laboratory facility, located across from the existing Biological Sciences building, forms a consolidated science zone within the campus. This helps to unify the previously dispersed science programs and create a collegial environment among its users, which include chemistry, biology, allied health, and geology departments.

The three-story project is primarily devoted to wet-lab uses, with fume hood intensive space and instructional spaces. The facility includes a Van de Graaff linear accelerator, veterinary science facilities, greenhouses, and an observatory.