Innovation center perspective view from outside
The UC Innovation Center was my favorite building visited on the urban campus visits. Although I was initially more excited for Aravena’s Torres Siameses, I found that the Innovation Center was the more successful project in the end. While Aravena’s solutions to budget constraints for Torres Siameses were innovative, it also created maintenance problems for the building. The wearing wood exterior ground and the unwashed glass showed signs of problems reached in the post production of the project.
View of atrium from ground floor
Meanwhile, the Innovation Center’s more simple form created many features with just the element of shifted prisms and voids. Voids were important in this volumetric building in creating openings between the concrete for occupiable balconies that also let light in. A central void running through the central axis mundi of the building created an atrium that let light shine through all the floors of the building. Another void acted as the entryway into the project. From the exterior, the voids seem to be shifted along three rows of the facade with double height balcony spaces. This creates ambiguity between the indoor space that actually holds 11 floors.
Innovation center facade
The voids created transform from balconies to entry to atrium creating outdoor spaces and clerestory. Staying true to its name, this project takes innovative plays of breaking the box.