60th Anniversary Spotlight: When it All Came Together

At a key time in its evolution as an integrated design firm, LPA came together in 2007 with California State University, Northridge leaders to design a recreation center intended to change the paradigm of life on campus. At the time LPA’s integrated team was growing, taking on new challenges. In CSUN, designers found a client intent on becoming a “model sustainable campus,” eager to expand health and wellness options and keep students on campus longer.

On a constrained site in a largely residential community, designers worked with the campus community to shape a facility that inspired students, cut operating costs and reduced the project’s carbon footprint. Using some of the first energy-modeling tools available, designers shaped the building’s form around shading, natural light and displacement ventilation. Engineers worked with designers to relocate the heavy fitness equipment to the lower level and gyms to the second floor, reducing the required steel and building height. To support the elevated gyms, structural engineers designed an inverted tripod system; a suspended running track winds through the tripod structure.

Today the center is a vibrant center for life for a university that has changed what it means to attend classes on campus. “Students are also on campus longer,” CSUN Executive Director Debra Hammond said soon after the facility opened. “It feels like less of a commuter campus and more of a thriving campus, because people stay longer on campus and participate.”