Studio E Architects Explains The Look of UCSD's Revamped Dining Hall
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We spoke with Studio E Architect's principal Eric Naslund about University of California San Diego's $12M newly renovated 64 Degrees student dining hall at Revelle College. As you will see, the interiors have a wow factor that makes it unique above the average higher ed student eating grounds. He tells us the name of the 33,500 SF facility has three meanings: The average temp of La Jolla; the year Revelle College was founded (1964); and the height of the college's namesake, Roger Revelle, who was 6'4".
Eric says his team redesigned the "Big Box" concept to make it more intimate, despite the massive space. "The original hall had 22'-high ceilings. It was such a big space. People didn't feel really comfortable in there," he says. The architects broke the open-air space with various food stations (four in all) interspersed with a variety of seating, including six-person booths, counter seating and soft seating around fireplaces. No four-top tables anywhere.
The high walls were filled with metal coil curtain drapery panels as well as resin light pendants suspended over seating groups in an effort to tone down the immensity of the ceiling height and create more of an intimate dining atmosphere, Eric says.
If you look closely at the back-center of this image, you will see an original mural painted by artist Howard Warshaw that has been incorporated into the overall dining facility design.
And here we see one of UCSD's new demonstration kitchens (back, right), which allows the school chefs to work in the open and offer cooking classes to both dining program students and students who live on their own, and who "for the first times in their lives have to know how to take care of themselves," Eric says.
