Are Community Colleges Becoming Design Showcases?

Chaffey College’s Marie Kane Center for Student Services and Administration won an award from the San Diego chapter of the American Institute of Architects. (Image courtesy of gkkworks)

Are community-college campuses at last becoming design showcases? For years two-year institutions put up buildings that were almost defiantly unremarkable, but recently some community colleges have been seeking out cutting-edge architects—and opening buildings to be proud of.

Money helps, of course. A number of California institutions are benefiting from bond issues that are making campus overhauls possible. Among them is Chaffey College, which has campuses in Chino, Fontana, and Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. Not only does the college have a number of projects under way, but its Marie Kane Center for Student Services and Administration, which opened last year on the Rancho Cucamonga campus, just received an honor award from the San Diego chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

The 24,600-square-foot building was designed by gkkworks, of Irvine, Calif. It has student-services offices on the ground floor and administrative offices upstairs. The building is named for Marie Kane, who retired as the college’s president last summer.

Among other striking new buildings on community-college campuses are Edison State Community College’s Regional Center for Excellence and Johnson County Community College’s Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art.

The Regional Center for Excellence at Edison State Community College (Image courtesy of the Collaborative Inc.)

The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College (Image by Timothy Hursley, the Arkansas Office)