This progressive design-build competition planned to redevelop a 7.5 acre site at the center of campus, the first of the re-envisioned University Center Urban Core.
The Triton Pavilion is a building that combines nine different main user groups into one community, with programs ranging from the University’s Welcome Center, Alumni Center, Student Health clinics, classrooms and administrative offices for campus support.
This 332,000 sf project acts as the “front door” of the campus, providing a gateway to the University. The conceptual designs developed by EYRC Architects, in association with HMC Architects, wHY Architects and Sundt Construction demonstrated two different approaches to solving the challenges presented by the competition brief.
The Unity scheme is a contemporary re-invention of the current most iconic building on UCSD’s campus: Geisel library. Geisel library was inspired by open hands, cradling a book. The big idea in unity scheme is to invert those hands, bringing the fingers together, a manifestation of how the Triton Pavilion will bring 9 different user groups together.
The joined “hands” frame a gateway and a dramatic venture into Triton Plaza and the campus beyond, and the colonnades provide a seamless pedestrian connection to neighboring buildings.
The Tapestry scheme one of weaving: layering and joining program pieces together to encourage community while also retaining individual program identity.
The iconic dual bridges signify a path to the future as well as a link to the past (alumni). The ground plane becomes an extension of the tapestry, a porous ground plane allows paths to cross.
