Located in an ecologically sensitive environment on the UCSC campus, the Kresge College Expansion reinforces and layers onto an existing heritage campus by MLTW. Kresge College is reinvigorated with a new academic center at the nexus of the original campus street along with a trio of new residential buildings that respond to the University’s pressing need for more student housing. The project’s goal of connecting with the surrounding forest and the campus core is achieved with sensitivity to scale and building placement, always with deference to the majesty of the redwoods, and a newly accessible ravine bridge that provides more welcoming connections to the greater UCSC campus. At the campus scale, the original pedestrian street is extended into an activated loop path, with social spaces that flow into the residential buildings’ shared ground-floor amenities. The street culminates with the new academic center, which employs a technique common to the local polypore fungi to negotiate the site’s steep topography: simultaneously stepping down the slope and flaring out. The expansion builds upon Kresge College's founding theme of participatory democracy through a process of extensive student and community engagement leading to designs that enhance the original campus by increasing density, connectivity, and vitality.
Project facts
Location Santa Cruz, CA
Architect Studio Gang
Associate Architect TEF Design
Landscape Architect Joni L. Janecki and Associates
Landscape Architect Office of Cheryl Barton
Year 2023
Category Educational
AIANY Recognition
2025 AIANY Design Awards