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SAMUELI JEWISH CAMPUS
IRVINE, CALIFORNIA
Photography: Costea
Photography
CMACN 2005 Awards Edition, “CMU Profiles in Architecture”
Jury
Comments: The addition of these buildings greatly
extends the existing campus. Linked by a series of terraced
courts, the new linear community is joined to the
topography. The thoughtful detailing of the desert colored
masonry masses, combined with the hard and soft landscape
elements, creates a convincing human scale to these spaces.
Carrying forward that same sense of detail to the interior,
the building exhibits a rich complex of form, color and
texture. A symbolic “Western Wall” of rusticated
masonry serves to link the building to culture and
memory.
The Samueli Jewish Campus is a collection of buildings that
will become the new center for the Jewish community life in
Orange County. Adjacent to the existing Tarbut V’Torah
Day School, the upper school and community buildings lie in
a 22-acre campus extending toward the hills to the east, and
provide views of the adjacent valley to the
southwest.
The natural setting provided the challenge of a 45o vertical rise across the site, steadily climbing toward the east from the height of the original day school campus. The solution to integrate the new campus was to create terraces for each building component and nestle them into the slope to minimize the effect of two and threestory building height. The buildings are then linked together with a series of exterior courtyards.
The architecture of the campus continues to build on the aesthetic established at Tarbut V’Torah with simple masses sheathed in a smooth plaster skin painted the color of the surrounding hillsides. The masonry introduced on the “Western Wall” as symbolic of the foundation of Jewish community life, becomes the primary structural system of the new campus, creating a composition of forms between the smooth plaster masses against the texture of the horizontal bands of masonry.
The synergy between the two organizations of education and community allows for shared joint-use between many of the spaces, allowing for everyone to benefit from the playfield, a 25 yard by 25 meter pool, two court gymnasium, library, and a community hall with stage and lecture hall.
ARCHITECT:
LPA, Inc.
5161
California Avenue,
Suite 100
Irvine, CA 92617
Wendy
Rogers, AIA
Principal
Brandon
DeArakal, AIA
Project Manager
Joe
Yee, ASLA
Landscape Architect
Patrick
McClintock
Interior Design
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER:
Culp & Tanner, Inc.
GENERAL CONTRACTOR:
Snyder Langston Company
MASONRY CONTRACTOR:
Masonry Technology Incorporated
BLOCK PRODUCERS:
ORCO Block Company, Inc.
OWNER:
Tarbut V’Torah & Jewish Community Center of Orange County
