By Daily Press staff
Santa Monica-based Widom Wein Cohen O’Leary Terasawa (WWCOT) has been named the architect for a new 85,000-square-foot student services complex on the campus of El Camino College in Torrance, announced Adrian Cohen, FAIA, principal-in-charge for the project.
The new facility will replace the existing student services building, which no longer meets the needs of the student population. Situated in the heart of the 126-acre campus, the new student services complex will be designed to compliment the college’s predominantly mid-century era modern architecture, according to WWCOT design principal Andrea Cohen-Gehring.
“The new complex will address the college’s desire to centralize integrated student services and provide our students with a streamlined welcoming environment for services and activities,” said El Camino College President Dr. Thomas M. Fallo. “Most of our student service functions are currently situated in a 55-year-old building that no longer meets our needs in providing customer service excellence to our students.”
WWCOT’s design will accommodate a full range of student services functions such as admissions and records, career counseling, job placement, financial aid, and academic and student affairs to be clustered on the northern end of the building. Food service, dining area, bookstore and multipurpose rooms will be featured in the new building.
Construction of the $31 million facility, only the second significant new facility on campus in nearly 20 years, is expected to begin in 2008. Funding for the student services facility is being provided under Measure E, a recently passed $394 million bond, the largest successful bond for a single campus community college district in California.
In addition to Cohen and Cohen Gehring, members of WWCOT project team include: Kaveh Amirdelfan, AIA, project manager; Gretchen Wahab, director of strategic planning and programming; and Ben Levin, AIA, interiors principal.
Recognized as one of the fastest-growing architectural firms in the nation, WWCOT is a more than 100-person firm with additional offices in Palm Springs, Riverside, Moorpark, and Shanghai, China. Since the firm’s establishment in 1964, WWCOT has developed a long-standing reputation for implementing solutions that contribute to their clients’ success. WWCOT provides a full spectrum of services that includes programming, strategic and master planning, architectural and interior design, architectural forensics, and construction support services for a wide range of healthcare, governmental, educational, senior living, multifamily residential and corporate clients. Fund-raiser tapped to give RAND a hand
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 9, 2006. Read the original PDF.