About.
The new Student Center at The Claremont Colleges is being developed under the guidance of The Claremont Colleges Services. The center will serve as a new hub for student activity on campus and provide a centrally located home for select student services. The future Student Center is intended to be a new type of building on campus that is forward-thinking, supports diverse student needs in innovative ways, and creates a welcoming home for all. The project will undergo phases of visioning and will ultimately be constructed at the southeast corner of Dartmouth Avenue and Tenth Street, just north of the Library.
Project Timeline.
Planning is underway for a TCC Student Center to serve the evolving needs of consortial students seeking to gather and connect in a post-pandemic world where engagement, space, and communal relationships may be reimagined and redefined. The project timeline begins with student center visioning, then the design process, preconstruction planning, and ends with groundbreaking and construction with the grand opening scheduled in winter 2025/2026.
STUDENT CENTER VISIONING
BEGINNING FALL 2021
DESIGN PROCESS
SPRING 2022
PRE-CONSTRUCTION PLANNING
FALL 2023
GROUNDBREAKING + CONSTRUCTION
GRAND OPENING
Winter 2025/2026
Collaboration with the Hive.
The student center team partnered with The Hive’s Human-Centered Design class to gain additional student insight into the center as part of the ongoing outreach process. The Hive’s fall class facilitated team projects in which the students designed an element of service that the new student center could offer for a specific type of user. The Student Center team was present for the student’s project presentations and was excited to see the wide variety of ideas and insights the students conceived and demonstrated. Students’ perspectives and feedback continue to inform and shape the design of the Student Center.
Project Overview.
Through all the project phases, the Student Center team hosts community engagement opportunities to gain insights for the center. The stats below show the engagement metrics from the visioning phase. In this phase, engagement opportunities included focus groups, open houses at each institution, recurring meetings with select committees, and ongoing online open comments. Over 1,000 individuals participated, of which 875 participants were students across The Claremont Colleges. Campus community engagement like this will be conducted repeatedly throughout all phases so that the Student Center continues to reflect the needs and interests of the students using it.
In early 2022, the visioning process for the Student Center was completed by TCCS and Ayers Saint Gross (ASG), an architectural and design firm.
The visioning process creates a vision for the new central facility that allows for better placement and delivery of TCCS services and provides a welcoming, accessible, and inclusive space for the entire TCC community while simultaneously re-imagining existing space.
The project outcomes establish a vision that includes goals, priorities, and guiding principles for the Student Center.
In fall 2022, TCCS proceeded with a design competition to select an architectural firm to fully design the facility. A design competition encourages visionary design professionals to form well-organized, talented, and experienced teams to undertake this unique project. An evaluation jury consisting of the TCCS Student Center Planning Team, staff representatives from Pomona, CGU, Scripps, CMC, and Pitzer, and key staff and faculty of The Hive comprised the jury. The teams presented their designs during project presentations. Following the jury evaluation, HMC Architects prevailed as the preferred team to design the TCC Student Center. The concept designs presented by HMC Architects are preliminary but reflect many of the concepts, ideas and suggestions gathered in the visioning phase of the project.
The project is currently in the Programming Services phase, which will better define the project scope and budget for the architectural design work. This phase also includes community outreach, and the project team will meet various stakeholders to obtain input. Details coming soon.
Input.
Let us know what you want to see in the new TCC Student Center! What design elements and services would appeal to you? The TCC Student Center team welcomes suggestions from the campus community.