Comstock's magazine 0620 - June June 2020 | Seite 59

COSUMNES
RIVER COLLEGE
Winn Center
Architect: Lionakis
Project cost: $13.7 million
Completed: 2013
One of the biggest challenges for the architects designing the Winn Center
at Cosumnes River College in south Sacramento was configuring the project
to house four very diverse disciplines: architecture, construction management,
photography and pharmacology. “It’s a fairly standard practice
of meeting with each of those groups individually and figuring out, in your
space, how do we arrange things, and who’s next to whom in the building,”
says Jonathan McMurtry, associate principal with Lionakis.
For example, solar orientation was important for the photography department,
so a north-facing elevation was ideal. The architecture department
needed a yard to build experimental structures, so the ground floor
was best. The finished project yielded a 41,500-square-foot, two-story
building with the architecture department, a community room, lecture
spaces and pharmacology labs on the first floor, and the constructionmanagement
department, photography department and faculty offices on
the second floor.
The central front entry element is a circular design of floor-to-ceiling
glass flanked by white curved walls. The entrance acts as the front door to
the main campus as well as the building’s lobby. The modern design also
incorporates brick, in keeping with the college’s material palette.
Before the project was offered to professionals, it had been posed as
a student design competition; one of the major themes of the building was
“buildings that teach.” Students from each of the four disciplines were employed
to help work on the project. Lionakis hired two of the architecture
students who won the student competition to work as interns, and after
they graduated, hired them as staff. In addition, the architects created
opportunities for learning by designing exposed spaces where visitors can
see the workings of the building: an exposed rain leader, the radiant floor
manifold in a display case, an example of a shear wall and braced frame.
“We were not hiding these things but actually exposing them to show
people how they work,” says McMurtry.
PHOTO BY CHIP ALLEN
June 2020 | comstocksmag.com 59