In this episode of Student Success: Built by Design, our host Jeff Johnson is joined once again by Dr. Joel Peterson, and for this episode they also welcome new guests Matthew Austin, Ben Dalton, and Patrick Goforth to discuss the effect of the design of performing arts spaces on academic performance and community. Matthew is a design principal for architecture and urbanism with HGA Architects. Ben is partner and design lead with Miller Hull Architects, and Patrick is design manager with PCL Construction Services. They examine how the built environment supports Student Success through performing and visual arts projects funded by the San Diego Community College District’s $3.5 billion Measure HH. This episode they talk about applying Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to arts facilities, balancing foundational requirements like safety, clean air, accessibility, durability, and maintainability with higher goals such as belonging, beauty, meaning, and self-actualization. Four case studies are highlighted: renovations at the Educational Cultural Complex and City College’s Seville Theatre, modernization and expansion of Mesa College’s Performing Arts Center with visual arts integration, and a new Miramar College Performing Arts and Humanities complex including a highly flexible black box theater with advanced acoustic technology and “third space” community areas. Listen now to this engaging conversation and subscribe to hear every new episode!
In this episode of Student Success: Built by Design, our host Jeff Johnson is joined once again by Dr. Joel Peterson, and for this episode they also welcome new guests Matthew Austin, Ben Dalton, and Patrick Goforth to discuss the effect of the design of performing arts spaces on academic performance and community.
Matthew is a design principal for architecture and urbanism with HGA Architects. Ben is partner and design lead with Miller Hull Architects, and Patrick is design manager with PCL Construction Services.
They examine how the built environment supports Student Success through performing and visual arts projects funded by the San Diego Community College District’s $3.5 billion Measure HH. This episode they talk about applying Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to arts facilities, balancing foundational requirements like safety, clean air, accessibility, durability, and maintainability with higher goals such as belonging, beauty, meaning, and self-actualization.
Four case studies are highlighted: renovations at the Educational Cultural Complex and City College’s Seville Theatre, modernization and expansion of Mesa College’s Performing Arts Center with visual arts integration, and a new Miramar College Performing Arts and Humanities complex including a highly flexible black box theater with advanced acoustic technology and “third space” community areas. Listen now to this engaging conversation and subscribe to hear every new episode!
Episode Guide:
The Student Success: Built by Design is a production of San Diego Community College District and is produced by University FM.
Why performing arts spaces are designed differently
10:18 [Matthew Austin] Classroom is really designed to transfer knowledge. A performing arts building is designed to help transfer emotion and help these students to discover new forms of confidence. That's a fundamentally different design challenge. A classroom is supporting human instruction. These buildings are supporting music, dance, theater, public speaking, and visual arts, every form of human expression, not just instruction. The buildings must comfortably support everything from quiet individual practice to energetic rehearsals to performances with hundreds of people. And in that respect, these buildings become instruments themselves. As opposed to a library where the mechanical and acoustical systems stay hidden in the background, in these buildings, these technical systems become part of the educational experience.
How the arts build courage, connection and belonging
13:35 [Matthew Austin] I think in supporting the lower end of Maslow's pyramid, that is really important, and that happens every day. At the high end of the self-performance, it's also we're putting on performances. These students are—that are like high-end athletes. And so there's a team or a company sense at the end of the performance. So if you go to a musical theater, for example, all of the disciplines might be represented in that one moment. There's oratory skills. There's actors connecting with the audience from an emotional level. There's visual arts in the stage craft. There's musicians in the orchestra pit that are setting the stage and the mood for each scene. And so it's in those moments where not only do the students need to be courageous, but the more they're able to work together, the more they're able to come as one entity or one company, that really shines in that final performance. We're excited about it from both ends, being able to bring these different disciplines into one structure.
What happens when a theater brings everyone closer?
19:41 [Ben Dalton] When we set off to design the main theater at Mesa, we wanted to blur the line between performer and audience. Rather than placing everyone sort of mechanically in rows looking at a distant stage, we want to gather people around the performance so that the room itself becomes part of the experience. So when we stop thinking about rows and seats, we imagine people gathering around a storyteller. We imagine a campfire experience. And that simple shift changes the entire character of the room, where every seat matters.
[00:00:00] Jeff Johnson: Student Success: Built by Design, expanding the human potential for today's students. Welcome to Student Success: Built by Design. In this podcast, we explore the fundamental question of how the built environment impacts student success. We will showcase specific design and build achievements of the San Diego Community College District's $3.5 billion bond, Measure HH, whose goal is to further our education and student success mission by designing and constructing learning environments that don't simply host students, but elevate them academically, personally, and socially.
Therefore, we design with a clear purpose and build with mission.
[00:00:43] Andrea Stalker: Previously on our podcast, we defined student success as a combination of academic, professional, personal, and social success. That these successes are, in part, driven by how well the range of human needs, from basic physical needs to self-fulfillment needs, are met. So, how the environment meets or misses these human needs at all levels impacts student success.
This then can be the theoretical lens through which we examine the design and construction of San Diego CCD's bond project. The built environment is the foundation upon which students can be elevated academically, personally, and socially.
[00:01:29] Jeff Johnson: Welcome back to our podcast on Student Success: Built by Design. In today's broadcast, we're going to be talking about performing and visual arts case studies. And so, we have some new guests. And so, we're going to be talking about how we integrate Maslow's hierarchy of needs, how they relate to performing and the visual arts.
And so, we have four different projects with the same mission, student success. So, we have, returning back, Dr. Joel Peterson, San Diego Community College District Vice Chancellor and Executive Operations Officer. And so, we have new guests as well. So, we have Matthew Austin, HGA Architects, Design Principal, Architecture and Urbanism. Also, Ben Dalton, Miller Hull Architects, Partner, Design Lead. And also Patrick Goforth, PCL Construction Services, Design Manager. And myself, Jeff Johnson, PBK Architects, Principal and Design Director in Educational Planning.
So, we're going to be reviewing a little bit about some of the first early episodes about student success and how they relate to the personal, social, and academic, but also interrelating those into Maslow's hierarchy of needs, starting with physiological needs, some of the basics, but then leading to safety, social, self-esteem, and self-actualization.
So, in these, we're going to, kind of, be interlacing those into our four projects. One is Mesa College Performing Arts Center, also Miramar College Performing Arts and Humanities Building, and City College Performing Arts, and ECC Performing Arts. So, as we're talking about this, we're starting to realize the differences with buildings like this compared to typical campuses, and also some of the design moves, what makes them a little bit different, how we approach those, and a little bit of compare and contrast.
You know, we have the same mission, but different approaches and different circumstances. So, before we dig in too far, Dr. Peterson, wanted to get a little bit of perspective of each of these projects and tell us a little bit more about each of these projects.
[00:03:28] Dr. Joel Peterson: Thanks, Jeff. This is very exciting, this topic, to me. Again, our theoretical lens that we're postulating is that student success rests on a foundation of the human needs being met, that if we don't have the various levels as articulated through something like Maslow's hierarchy of needs fully met, then it's going to be impossible for students to have success in their personal and social and academic lives.
And so, what we're really postulating is that these needs, these human needs that we have, can be met, certainly could be hindered or unmet by the physical built environment. So, part of what we'll be looking at here is that across these performing arts facilities and buildings that we have, is how they balance out the different kinds of needs from the physical level and how they still don't get in the way of some of the high-level self-actualization.
So, we have four different projects. The current one that's furthest along the way is at our College of Continuing Education at a very historic location called the Educational Cultural Complex. A lot of the luminaries of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and '70s actually performed and had gatherings at this performing arts venue, including more modern people like Whoopi Goldberg in her stand-up comedy days.
So, it's got a storied past, and so the challenge has been how we renovate it and make it relevant to today, everything from the seismic retrogrades, to expanding to deal with the technologies that performing arts require now, that we have computer-controlled lighting and programming, et cetera.
So, that's exciting, but there's a lot of history that has to be preserved at the same time. We also then have at our City College, San Diego City College, which is in downtown San Diego, again, one of our oldest colleges that we have. And it has an existing theater, the Saville Theatre, but we're going to modernize it and expand it and bring it closer to the front of the campus in terms of the street set it's on, so it becomes more of a community asset.
And so, again, it's an exciting kind of component of how it is going to put a different emphasis for audiences and performers, to help better meet all the various needs that will be the foundation for student success. And then at our San Diego Mesa College, which is in a very suburban area, just north of the downtown area of San Diego. And this is our largest college. We have about 30,000 students that enroll in this college. And again, they've had a performing arts center there as well, but this is to modernize it and expand it, expand the number of seats from about 200, 250 to over 350 seats, and again, to bring out more functionality.
But it's also going to be integrated into an enhanced parking structure that will allow people attending the venue to have access to it, as well as we're going to be integrating it to our administrative spaces so that it's going to be a multifunctional complex of which the heart of it will be this performing arts complex.
But it will also have an exciting visual arts component to it as well. Mesa College is home to the second-largest world art collection west of the Mississippi, of art from Africa, the Caribbean, from Southeast Asia, from native populations, and other places around the world, and we're excited that we're going to be bringing out a visual arts component to this complex as well.
And lastly, and certainly not least, is our San Diego Miramar College, which is to the north end of the San Diego metroplex. And it is also one of our larger ones, but it has historically been focused more on a lot of the public services. We have our police academy there, our fire academy, a number of those things.
So, this is going to be a brand-new build for a brand-new program. This college has not had a fine arts and strong humanities curriculum historically, but now is looking to move forward with a very large, about a 500-plus-seat complex that will have an auditorium that isn't just for the college community and students, but is actually going to be for the broader community at large, where community organizations and groups, and it can be a destination venue for artists who come to perform within the San Diego area.
So, it's going to be interesting to see how my colleagues here talk about their various projects and how design, but also how constructability and materials choices and so forth, meet the physical layer, the psychological layer, the emotional, the social, the belonging, and the higher elements of beauty and self-actualization.
I'm excited, Jeff, this is going to be a really fun cast.
[00:08:20] Jeff Johnson: No, this is great. And then what a great historic time in San Diego Community College District's history that with Measure HH in a $3.5 billion bond, now we're really getting into the money aspects of applying this with brick, mortar, steel, and concrete. You had touched on some of the core elements of the mission of student success. How do some of these formative arts attend to Maslow's ideas and the student needs? How does that work out in some of the details in these projects?
[00:08:50] Dr. Joel Peterson: I think I would turn this over to probably our two design principals in that portion. But one of the things that I know that in talking with our various design teams, is that they've let me understand better that performing arts as a concept tends to be, sort of, what we consider probably at the highest end of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You have to first meet food and warmth and clean water and safety and some of these things, and then you look at beauty and sense of meaning and those kind of things.
But what they have explained to me is that, even though a building is set to meet these highest levels of a hierarchy like that, at the end of the day, all the lower ones... And "lower" just means prior in priority, not lower in priority, must be met by these facilities as well. And that the challenge is being able to make sure that you meet the structural safety and the clean air and the mechanicals and all that, but that it doesn't hinder the aspirations and the beauty and the belonging, the meaning parts that a design might evoke.
[00:09:59] Jeff Johnson: That makes perfect sense. And actually, pass that on to Matthew. As designers of different building types, what's fundamentally different about designing performing arts compared to like a school or a library or an office?
[00:10:14] Matthew Austin: Well, first, thanks for having me here. It's an incredible honor. A classroom is really designed to transfer knowledge. A performing arts building is designed to help transfer emotion and help these students to discover new forms of confidence. That's a fundamentally different design challenge.
A classroom is supporting human instruction. These buildings are supporting music, dance, theater, public speaking, and visual arts, every form of human expression, not just instruction. The buildings must comfortably support everything from quiet individual practice to energetic rehearsals to performances with hundreds of people.
And in that respect, these buildings become instruments themselves. As opposed to a library where the mechanical and acoustical systems stay hidden in the background, in these buildings, these technical systems become part of the educational experience. If the acoustics aren't right, students can't hear one another. If the sight lines are off, the performers lose connection with their audience. The technical precision isn't just good engineering, it's essential to the teaching and learning environments. And as we think about those upper levels, designing for the students' creative confidence, they're stepping on stage for the first time or a 100th time, and they're just as scared as I am of being on this podcast.
And it's our responsibility to create spaces where they feel comfortable enough to take those creative risks. So, when you're designing a science lab, the success is fairly measurable. When you're designing a theater, you're designing for something harder to quantify, confidence, vulnerability, and human connection. That's part of what makes these projects so rewarding and exciting.
[00:12:04] Jeff Johnson: That's great, that expressive and emotional part to it. Ben, when you're looking at Miramar, bringing performing arts and music, visual arts all together, when you think about the student experience, is it just bringing those things together by convenience, or is there something more by bringing that together?
[00:12:20] Ben Dalton: Yeah, really good question. I think there's a lot more to it. A lot of what Matthew was talking about, the emotional intensity that needs to come with the arts. No matter what your craft is in this discipline, there's a commonality in the sense that, at the highest level of performance, they all require an amount of self-expression, a vulnerability, and a social courage to get out and share your personal perspective.
So, as you think about Maslow's pyramid in this sense, having a community that you can build around these different crafts and disciplines allows students not only to practice the technical side of their art, but it allows them to build relationships that gives self-courage, gives a sense of belonging.
We have a lot of students in the community college industry that are first-time learners, coming from different backgrounds and different experiences. And so, bringing these cross-disciplines together allows them to find their place within a larger community. It allows them to become comfortable with one another and to find that courage to bring out their own history, their own person into their art.
So, I think in supporting the lower end of Maslow's pyramid, that is really important, and that happens every day. At the high end of the self-performance, it's also... We're putting on performances. These students are like high-end athletes. And so, there's a team or a company sense at the end of the performance.
So, if you go to a musical theater, for example, all of the disciplines might be represented in that one moment. There's oratory skills. There's actors connecting with the audience from an emotional level. There's visual arts in the stagecraft. There's musicians in the orchestra pit that are setting the stage and the mood for each scene.
And so, it's in those moments where not only do the students need to be courageous, but the more they're able to work together, the more they're able to come as one entity or one company, that really shines in that final performance. We're excited about it from both ends, being able to bring these different disciplines into one structure.
[00:14:24] Jeff Johnson: Yeah, it's such a dynamic way, the collaborative bringing people together, and it's much more of an expressive and active, where a classroom is more individual. So, as we're talking about, kind of, some of these foundational levels, to Patrick, there's functionality, there's durability. How are the performing arts and visual arts a little bit different in the care for a building compared to like a typical classroom?
[00:14:47] Patrick Goforth: Well, compared to like a typical classroom or like a typical theater, I mean, for me, it rounds out into a couple of things, and I think some of Matt and both Ben have, kind of, touched on some of those things as well. But like for me, I'm coming at it sometimes from a little bit of a different perspective, but I'm looking at it, you know, one, as a life-cycle cost of the building.
This is a school, so we've really got to be conscientious about like the operational limitations of the facilities in which and the campuses in which we're building at. You don't want to build one of these amazing facilities, and then it can't be, like, operated or maintained properly. So, you've got to first, like, make sure that you're picking those materials and equipment that are going to hold up longer, that are going to account for, like, student usage, and that are also going to align with, like, the existing facilities maintenance programs.
The second big thing for me is that every piece of this building and these buildings are instructional. So, like here, like every space has students and faculty, and we need to, kind of, give them those spaces and those opportunities to be safe, grow, learn, all while all this other stuff is happening all around them.
But like in a typical theater environment, you're dealing with like an audience and like trained professionals and theater techs. Here, we're dealing with students. And like I think it was Matt said, the students are coming at this with all levels of experience. And so, that means that all these things, especially the technical side of things, that means that the rigging, the lighting, the curtains, the scene shops, all of that can't be designed for the occasional use or for the use by a highly trained professional.
It's got to be designed robust enough to handle repeated hands-on use, like students who are trying all this stuff out, not only as they're learning, but, like, for the first times. And that we also, you know, to let them shine through these processes, we have to let them feel safe while they're operating all this equipment to allow them to build that confidence to actually do that stuff well.
And so, that, kind of, takes a different level of care, as we're looking through the designs and trying to like plan out for that future build.
[00:16:43] Dr. Joel Peterson: One of the things that I find really fascinating as I'm listening to my colleagues here is what goes through my mind is, even if we talk about giving the student performers this ability, one, I like what Patrick was pointing out that these aren't just performance spaces, but that these are teaching laboratories.
That we have to have lighting that doesn't just work as lighting, but then also has to be allowing us to be able to teach how to do lighting. That when we have rigging... Because we teach to all different types of students, those who may have mobility issues and so forth, we have to be able to, for instance, bring that lighting down to say ground level so that somebody in a wheelchair would still be able to be in the program and learn about lighting even though they may have some of these kinds of mobility issues.
And it's every facet is like that. The acoustics part is the same thing. We'll have students who are learning about sound systems. You'll have students who are learning stagecraft, not just professionals who are doing it. So, we have to treat each and every space as not only its basic function as a performance or a rehearsal or whatever, but that it also has to be a living laboratory and/or living classroom.
And then the third part that was going through my mind is that we've been talking about the students who are doing or performing or building or running the lights and so forth, but there's a whole audience. And what we know is that if the audience experience isn't right, it doesn't let the performers do things right.
Those of us who lived through the pandemic, we know that we tried to do these athletic performances and these arts performances with no audiences, and you could just tell that the energy just wasn't there. People could not perform artistically, musically, oratorically, in any other kind of way without that interaction and the emotional energy.
And certainly for people wanting to attend one of these things, you couldn't get the connection and the full sense of the potential of what this performance could be from an audience perspective. So, what I find fascinating, what I look forward to hearing more from our designers and our builders, is how they balance the two. Or if there are synergies that you have, the energy on one end ends up enhancing the other, but how design does that or how material choices. So, I'm very fascinated to, kind of, understand that part of it.
[00:19:04] Jeff Johnson: And that's great because, you know, we got the two sides, it's visible as a performance as well as the performer. And I was reminded that, you know, we're talking about these sometimes small moves, the details, but also sometimes the big moves. And so, a big question to Matthew about, like at Mesa, you talked about intentionally, kind of, rolling back the theater inward. Walk us through that move and to what Dr. Peterson is talking about, these small things, how design makes bigger impact.
[00:19:33] Matthew Austin: Sure. Yeah, it flows perfectly. When we set off to design the main theater at Mesa, we wanted to blur the line between performer and audience. Rather than placing everyone, sort of, mechanically in rows looking at a distant stage, we want to gather people around the performance so that the room itself becomes part of the experience.
So, when we stop thinking about rows and seats, we imagine people gathering around a storyteller. We imagine a campfire experience. And that simple shift changes the entire character of the room, where every seat matters. As you wrap the audience around the stage, you reduce the feeling of distance for them, you eliminate the sense that there are cheap seats, and every audience member becomes connected to the performance.
And one of my favorite moments of this, and some of the teachers began seeing this through visualizations, was that you can see the audience members reacting. You can watch laughter spread, you can feel emotion ripple through the room, and that shared energy charges the space and gives those performers something tangible to respond to.
And in the students' psychology, a huge empty room can feel intimidating. A more intimate room can feel encouraging. And we want these rooms to feel like they're rooting for the students. Of course, architecture can't teach students, the faculty will teach the students. But the architecture can create these conditions for the people to connect, collaborate, and discover new forms based on that energy of what they can become.
[00:21:13] Jeff Johnson: So, the social community kind of thing is really, kind of, interesting. It's a completely different dynamic. So, with Ben, there's a lot of opportunities for this kind of social interaction. And you touched on a little bit before on like the idea of third space, the "me, we, us," thinking about with Miramar and the Constellation Acoustic System. Tell us some more about like the black box and all that.
[00:21:37] Ben Dalton: Yeah, sure. No, there's a lot in there. One of the things we found when we got into the program of this project is so much of the spaces, the educational spaces for the arts, are highly technical, and the result of that is you need to be in a room that you can really control the acoustics or the lighting or the privacy, to allow each of the students to practice and to build their skills in a place that's comfortable to them.
At the same time, you have a bunch of different elements that students are learning that are all about self-expression and expressing themselves to an audience and to other people. And so, we got to talking a lot with students and stakeholders about how do we make visible the things that are hidden for technical reasons.
And so, this concept of third space came out, actually, from one of the students that was in our design sessions. And the notion of third space is just simply, you've got your technical program, but there's a lot of space in between that, and that needs to be there because it's a corridor to get you from A to B.
But if you start to think about that as a programmable space and as a flexible space, what comes out of that is this ability to have unintentional collisions between different students. It allows students to find themselves within a community. And if you're intentional about it, you can create spaces where... You mentioned the "me, we, us." So, if you imagine yourself going to an airport or in a crowded room, there's times that you want to be amongst other people, but you want to be alone. You know, you're focused on a task, but it's nice to be in a social environment. That's kind of a "me" space.
A "we" might be a few students that want to get together to work on a project or talk about a scene that they're working on. And an "us" space might be a much larger gathering where they're working out some ideas together. If you can create these third spaces so that all of those opportunities coexist, it allows everybody to find their moment in the moment where they are in the day.
And that community gets back to what I was talking about at the beginning, it brings ownership to the students. And when they walk into the building, you want them to feel like not only do they belong there, but in the time that they're spending at the campus, this is a piece of their journey, and that they can fully be themselves, and work with one another in that special way.
[00:23:55] Jeff Johnson: Yeah. It's really a reminder of how dynamic it really is, that every space, it's educational space, even these technical aspects, and how it comes together. And Dr. Peterson talked about this, the laboratory. And Patrick was talking about that, too, about these kinds of technical spaces and how students are learning everywhere.
And so, as we, kind of, connect to some ideas of, kind of, Maslow with, kind of, these basic needs, how does that relate to like safety and access, compared to maybe a typical building?
[00:24:23] Patrick Goforth: Yeah. Maybe I can chime in on that one. Like you said, and I think Dr. Peterson, you said it right as well, is like each one of these technical spaces as we start looking at the catwalks and the tension grids, the backstage things, you know, all of those are not only acting as necessary functions for like a theater or performing space, but those are instructional spaces, especially when they're not in specific use.
And what that means, though, is for us, like the safety and the access becomes a primary concern. So, like, especially on a school, we have a lot of unique things that we are going to be having to consider in that context. Like not only the equitable access, but the privacy, safe oversight of the students by the faculty. Those are much more unique in this kind of a context than they are in a traditional production-style theater and in, like, a municipal theater. Like for us, these spaces have changing rooms, showering facilities. The actors and dancers are performing quick changes throughout performances.
In those professional theaters, like those things like privacy and are much less of a concern. In a school environment, that becomes a much more delicate endeavor to manage through that process. In addition to that, we've got the technical aspects, and I think Dr. Peterson, you started diving into this really well. But it's like as we're looking at these things and trying to treat these things like learning spaces, we're trying to build for a real universal equity of access for those spaces so that any student would have the ability to, you know, learn the ropes, as it was.
Any student would be able to basically go up there and hang the light fixtures, access the follow spots, operate from the control rooms. But what that means is that simple things you would see in a normal theater, like a ship's ladder or something like that, we're swapping those things out for things like elevators and lifts so that we can provide that universal accessibility.
And that also translates into things like lowerable pipe grids, little nuanced things like front-loading counterweights on some of the equipment up there so you're not leaning over those railings. Things like motorized line sets, intermediate loading galleries as you get into the technical aspect of things.
But it all, a lot of that for these like very elevated facilities, it all starts to revolve around accessing it, not through stairs or through ladders, but that universal accessibility, but it really goes into fall protection. So, that those elevated work areas where the students are learning as they're operating in those spaces, it's safe for them, and they feel safe as they're doing all of those things.
So, that allows them to then focus on that learning aspect of it. Like, as I'm thinking about it as a contractor, like that also just means reviewing and understanding that intent from the beginning, but also making sure that you're protecting that throughout the whole process.
[00:26:55] Jeff Johnson: It's a whole layer of design that needs to be integrated, thinking with the end in mind. All the risk, kind of, management things that the district has to consider.
[00:27:05] Dr. Joel Peterson: One of the thoughts that came out because of Patrick's comments is that it goes to some of the questions that I get from the community often saying, and to your point, Jeff, with $3.5 billion and we're building these things, how does that... First of all, why? Three of the performing arts projects already exist. Why aren't they good enough? Back when I was in elementary school, performing arts was a stage at the end of a gymnasium that you just put up the basketball court and had a little, you know, curtain that you could bring.
And part of it is because, to Patrick's point about the technical aspects, well, the technical aspects of technology have progressed so much. Lighting isn't just a couple of light switches that happen to go with a blue and a red and a white spotlight that comes on. Now we have, you know, software-driven kind of things.
You can synchronize lights. You can have technology like lasers and so forth, and holographic components, and you put that in with smoke that can be done, so you can now effectively write on air. And this is the state of the art in performing arts. If somebody is going to learn this craft, and this is going to be their profession that they want to go into, within sound and light, in a theatrical environment, they have to be able to know and understand and be proficient in the state-of-the-art technology.
And not just the current state, but the trend line of where it's going. And so, we can't do that with old facilities. And we can't just hang this new technology onto the old things because, again, the older buildings weren't designed. They don't have the power requirements. They don't have the structural requirements to hold the extra load, all these kinds of things.
So, essentially, for us to be able to stay relevant in our mission of teaching not only what is the fine arts and the performing arts and the visual arts, which have been classical things since the Greek theater days, or to Matthew's point that since people have been hanging around campfires, we're teaching people very technical proficiencies that are at breakneck speed changing, driven by software, driven now by things like AI. And so, we have to revitalize these buildings almost from the ground up. And then how fun is it for Ben to be literally designing something from the ground up, but then his challenge is trying to future-proof it.
The one last thought that I might, kind of, put to my colleagues here is, I think from a design perspective, and then the challenge then is, Patrick says you have to interpret it when you build it, is that when you're building like an office building, people, kind of, expect it to look like an office building or a classroom. In other words, they don't have a lot of design expectations. It's a box, it's square, got windows on it. But when it's a performing arts thing, it's a theater or a concert hall, people think it ought to be something like, you know, the Disney Performing Arts Center or something. You know, there's a higher expectation of design creativity, design excellence on the outside and the inside.
So, I would love to hear maybe from our team a little bit about this aspect, because that's real pressure.
[00:30:06] Ben Dalton: Yeah. Dr. Peterson, if I might, that's a really good question. Before jumping into that, something you just mentioned about the building from the ground up and the intersection of technology and education, I wanted to loop back to a black box theater component that we have up at Miramar that is really fascinating to me.
You know, black box theater, I've always thought of as being, from a theatrical sense, this experimental stage where you can change the relationship between the performers and the audience, whether it's in the round or a soloist performance. And we have such a large primary theater, four to 500 seats, as you mentioned, having this smaller venue is really special.
And because music is such a large part of what Miramar is teaching, we've been able to develop a black box musical theater as well. So, it has a state-of-the-art acoustic array. It's got speakers in the ceiling, microphones and speakers about every twelve inches in a grid. And so, you can dial the acoustics of that room to be anything from a grand concert hall to a garage band setting and everything in between.
And so, it's really interesting for the performers because they can experiment with any type of space. But additionally, it allows the technical side, the students, to learn how to operate a system that's at that level of sophistication. And so, as they experiment in that space, there'll be lighting design, acoustic design, all kinds of technical skills that are going to be part of the educational program there, that I think really expands the opportunity there for students that are coming through Miramar College.
[00:31:41] Dr. Joel Peterson: Oh, it's fascinating.
[00:31:42] Jeff Johnson: Yeah, it is.
[00:31:43] Dr. Joel Peterson: And you still have to make it look all designy, edgy, and pretty.
[00:31:48] Jeff Johnson: Make it look easy. Yeah.
[00:31:50] Ben Dalton: Yeah. Well, what you mentioned about the aesthetics of the building is something that we've been having a lot of conversations about here recently. And as a new building at Miramar's campus, we're also in many ways the front door to the campus as you come into Miramar.
And so, there's been a lot of pressure on this project to be, you know, a gateway both to the humanities but also a gateway into the college campus. And as you mentioned, because of the prominence of the performance, there's a lot of pressure on it being a significant architectural moment.
At the same time, we have a lot of students that are coming, and the faculty alike, and saying, "We want a building that's cozy. You know, we want a space that when we come into, we feel comfortable, we're in there day to day." And so, we've had this really interesting discussion about what does it mean to be a civic presence of a theater, or something that's, sort of, stately and self-important in its architecture?
What does it mean at this scale to be approachable and comfortable for different people from different perspectives, different walks of life? And so, that's the balance that we're really working with. And a lot of it comes down to very big volumes, four- to 500-seat theaters, a big structure. How do you get that scale to something that feels comfortable to a person walking up to it?
We're in an environment where the sun is really strong. How do you layer the facade in a way that shade and shadow help break that scale down but also make people feel comfortable and inhabit spaces indoor and outdoor and in between, where they really feel comfortable, they feel like they've entered kind of a humanities district, at the same time that they're approaching the building for the specific purpose that they're going for?
[00:33:30] Jeff Johnson: This is a great point because, you know, it's not just performing arts and visual arts. There's a kind of iconic building and purpose that it has within community building, on a campus or within a city. Yeah, I think that's important for our listeners, like what does it mean for us, or how do they interact with that?
As we're talking about, kind of, the student experience and those kind of things, I'm wondering about some of that kind of larger scale and aesthetics and how it plays in. I was wondering, Matthew, what were some of your thoughts on what Dr. Peterson's bringing up?
[00:34:01] Matthew Austin: Well, let's see, it's a great question. I think first and foremost, we want to create something that's uplifting, that has the spirit of the arts and evokes a sense of creativity, wonder, and discovery. And having Patrick and the builders alongside of this has been a powerful tool because as we are stewarding public funds, we have to be very smart. And often the tools that we have to achieve these effects are things that are essential. As Ben was saying, solar protection. How do you make that do more?
So, in many ways, we found the spirit of the building and those experiences through the program, the choreography of these relationships, the way it meshes into campus and negotiates topography in order to create something that's different, something that makes you stop and think. And I think it's that sense of working, sort of, radically through the pragmatics that you can unlock a spirit that's at once quite responsible and straightforward, but is delivering an unexpected result.
[00:35:10] Jeff Johnson: I think that's great. I think of the word that's rooted, you know, it's rooted in the community, it's rooted in good efficiency and accountability for the... As stewards of the money. And yeah, it's really powerful how the difference what it can make within a community.
I think in closing, I have a question, like, maybe to all of you, what was your favorite part in the process? Pulling it together? Or were there certain moments that... I think Ben mentioned about something how the student brought up something. Was there something working with staff or community? What were some of your favorite parts?
[00:35:43] Patrick Goforth: I mean, for me, I think as we think about it and we think about the pyramid of everything as well, like the experience of this in general. Because, like, as we think about this and even going through this discussion and stuff like that, as we talk about the hierarchy of needs, I always deal with it in my interactions, especially as I'm dealing with Matt, which has been a very productive relationship.
But it's like those architects and designers, like you were saying, are coming at this though from that upper level of the pyramid, from the inspirational and the aspirational sides of things. Because that's where they live. That's where their heart is. And it's what inspires them to be able to design these things and what they hope will inspire others.
But like I'm always coming at it from this contractor side where I'm rooted in the bottom of that pyramid, where I'm dealing with the budgets and the safety and like the constraints of that project. So, it's like one of the good aspects of how the district set this up, coming at these things from the design-build aspect, is you're partnering each of us up to basically come at these problems from one from the top and, you know, one from the bottom, where you're basically trying to find that ideal balance of like creating these inspirational projects which are going to help carry the schools into the future, while also meeting all of these like heavy constraints and achieving the safety goals and achieving the budget goals and everything all at the same time.
And like you're just hopeful in that process that you're finding good partners to do that stuff with.
[00:37:00] Jeff Johnson: Yeah, sometimes we talk about a good cop/bad cop, but it's, kind of, being rooted, but you're reaching for the stars. So, it's that balance between the two. That's great.
[00:37:08] Matthew Austin: I would just say I think it's a part of the ethos of the shared governance of the district and these colleges. You can feel the fingerprints of the security officers, the operations, the deans, the president. There's really an access, a responsibility, amongst all parties, whether it's a teaching thing, organization of certain flows of materials, safety, and everyone has had access to the project, sort of, by mandate, in a way that has made it incredibly rich.
So, every time we go to one of these meetings, it's a community of 40 people who we've been with for 10 months, we expect to be with for another, you know, handful of years in the future, and it feels like we're doing it together.
[00:37:53] Ben Dalton: I would lean in on, you know, nothing feels better than having a consensus from a bunch of different perspectives come together in a shared vision. And I think we've had several of those moments along the way. And it's especially powerful at Miramar where, as you said earlier, Dr. Peterson, the drama program is really a new program for them. And so, there's this aspirational quality to what the campus is working to build, in addition to really supporting all their other programs that are going to be foundational to this new building.
We've had many moments, as you were describing, Matthew, where there's a room full of individuals, everybody coming at it from a different background, with a different perspective. And when you can bring them together into a single vision that really is exciting all of them and elevating all aspects of it, there's really nothing better in my mind. That's what the design process is all about.
And we're really looking forward to seeing this come out of the ground eventually, be realized, and be a new part of a community that doesn't have a performing arts center at this scale up in the north area of San Diego. So, this is really going to be a new institution, not just for the college, but for the community at large.
[00:39:08] Dr. Joel Peterson: My favorite part of this whole process is when I think of the vision just as purely, you know, very ephemeral and very nascent in our facilities master plans that we had for each of our colleges that we put together some five years ago, and I came in getting the final ratification of that process.
And then of envisioning how we would get the community to come out and support this and to put out such a big number. And then to be able to be validated that we had communicated things, and that our fellow neighbors and friends and colleagues in the San Diego community came out and supported this in excess of 60%.
And then the really fun thing is then when we got to put out these proposals, and we had so much response from... I mean, you look at my three colleagues that I have here, or four colleagues, from the, you know, architectural, engineering, and construction industries. And we had over 39 different proposals across about eight or 10 different large projects. And across these four, we had certainly what I deem to be some of the nation's and probably some of the best teams and firms in the world.
So, it's just for me absolutely thrilling to then see you all turning what was once just sort of a pipe dream and a little bit of scratches on a couple of bureaucratic pieces of paper, and you're making it into reality, getting the dreams out of our community, having them articulated, and then putting that pen to paper, and then people like Patrick then actually turning that into tangible things that come out of the ground. There's nothing better than to see a vision becoming something that is obtainable and real, and then seeing that whole process.
So, I'm just thrilled, and I thank you all for the great work that you do, the fantastic talent that you brought. And again, as we point out, how you think through, how you bring the design, balance out everything from the most fundamental and foundational needs all the way up to our highest levels of needs for meaning and beauty and aesthetics. You're doing that, and we know that all of that is what supports student success, and without that, the students would not be able to reach the success in personal, and professional and academic, and community. So, thank you all for this opportunity to chat with you.
[00:41:30] Matthew Austin: Thank you.
[00:41:31] Jeff Johnson: Well, this has been a great session, and it really reminds me of the power of designer, builder, owner, you know, working together in concert for something to give back to the community. And I think this is a great discussion on how that actually happens.
And so, I just want to thank all of our guests, and thank you, Dr. Joel Peterson, and all that is happening on the campus. So, we could keep talking, but unfortunately we have to cut loose. And so, in our next session of Student Success: Built by Design, we're going to be talking in a similar way about athletic uses of different projects on the campus. And so, we're going to be comparing a little bit from athletics and performing arts and what that teaches us about student success.
So, I just want to thank everybody for joining us, and remember, student success is built by design.
Thanks for joining our podcast, Student Success: Built by Design. This series is brought to you by San Diego Community College District and its Measure HH Bond Program, whose goal is to further its education and student success mission. We'll see you next time.
Measure HH is a $3.5 billion voter-approved capital improvement bond program at the San Diego Community College District, transforming its 10 campuses, which are housed in four separate colleges that collectively enroll 90,000 students annually. Measure HH will impact nearly 1 million students in its first 10 years.