Clifton Hall Dormitory
California College of Arts
Oakland, Calif.
Mark Horton / Architecture

Contemporary architecture lures the best students to this evocative dorm building

© Ethan Kaplan

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

In response to a tightening housing market impacting the draw of students to San Francisco's California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC), the college asked the architect to design its first dedicated dormitory building bearing this in mind. From the beginning, CCAC viewed this structure as an architectural gateway to its historic campus, and was interested in a building that would announce the college's interest in contemporary architecture.

The building needed to act on a civic level as a "hinge point" between the commercial/retail fabric of Oakland to the south and west and the single-family residential fabric of the Rockridge neighborhood to the north and east. The dormitory houses 124 students and advisors in 64 bedrooms on three floors above two stories of structured parking. The residential rooms are typically arranged as a pair of one-room doubles, which share a bathroom between them. The parking accommodates 36 automobiles on two levels, with an entrance lobby/student gallery located at the front portion of the street-level parking.

Organized in a bar building, the housing runs along the north line of the property with an object building placed in front. The object building, clad in zinc, accommodates the semi-public program areas of the dormitory, and its first level opens onto a terrace to provide for larger school-wide functions. This terrace, combined with the large window of the round building, makes a symbolic as well as programmatic connection to the main campus across an intervening street.

Location:
Oakland, Calif.

Gross square footage:
45,110 sq. ft.

Total construction cost:
$7.5 million

Owner:
California College of the Arts

Architect:
Mark Horton / Architecture
101 South Park
San Francisco, CA 94107
415 543-3347
415 543-1440 (F)
www.mh-a.com