Los Angeles Harbor College Southeast Hall

Helping Students Prepare for Life

Los Angeles Harbor College was built during the post-World War II era as part of the new national community college model. Today, the College has developed a general academic program, but vocational training continues to be at the heart of the college’s mission. Building upon a longstanding relationship with the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) and Harbor College itself, HGA was brought on board to design a new multipurpose building on campus.

The new 55,500 SF Southeast Hall will house the community college’s award-winning Nursing and Allied Health Science programs, as well as dedicated space for Equity Programs, Disabled Student Services, and Student Health Center. With two very distinct uses, the challenge for designers became marrying both components. The first floor is entirely dedicated to Student Services and houses the Equity Village, where all of these organizations are centrally located, rather than sporadically spread across campus.

The second floor houses the Nursing and Allied Health Science programs and includes nursing, CMT, and EMT skills labs and simulation rooms. The design of the space was a collaboration between HGA’s ACE and Healthcare groups, bridging the firm’s design expertise in both sectors. The second floor also includes nursing classrooms, lecture hall, and the Read Study Area.

It was important to the college that students and faculty have opportunities for casual interactions outside of the classroom. Therefore, classrooms and skills labs are located on one side of the floor, faculty offices on the other, and the Read Study Area – nicknamed “The Pit” – in between to provide a melting pot for students and faculty with open, collaborative study areas.

The new Southeast Hall is a gateway and public face of the college, located on the far east side of its South Los Angeles campus and prominently visible from a major freeway. It sits adjacent to the Science Complex, also designed by HGA in 2013. The college vernacular is predominantly brick buildings, and it was important to college leadership that the Southeast Hall utilize this more traditional material. The challenge became how to integrate this material in a way that would fit into the architectural dialogue without adding to the noise. Designers utilized a running bond pattern where the brick is stacked, homogenizing the color to create a modern and contemporary feel. Fins and frit patterns were added to shade the glass windows and reduce solar heat gain.

To avoid a notoriously long approvals process, HGA efficiently navigated each phase of the design to ensure it went smoothly and quickly, maximizing their client and contractors’ time and funds. In addition to the building, the Southeast Hall project also includes hardscaping and landscape design services for a new East Parking Lot with electric vehicle charging stations (EVCS), infrastructure for future EVCS installation, and renovation of the North Lot parking lot to provide new accessible stalls. The energy-efficient project is targeting LEED Silver-Certification including rooftop photovoltaic array that offsets 15 percent of the building’s energy.