San Diego College of Continuing Education’s Educational Cultural Complex, Ceramics Building

A New Chapter for Arts at the Educational Cultural Complex

For decades, the ceramics classes at the Educational Cultural Complex have provided community members a place to connect, create, and express themselves through clay, color, and form. The program’s new studio, relocated to the campus’s vocational training wing, will expand the legacy of a cherished community program by growing its capacity.

The Ceramics Building reutilizes spaces that once supported automotive upholstery and engineering training, transforming them into light-filled, open studio spaces. Through strategic adjustments to the existing structure, mechanical systems, and building envelope, the design team has reimagined the existing space into an open classroom with four discrete support spaces and two new kiln rooms organized around the flow of the ceramics process.

Each stage of making has been considered—from arrival and clay collection, to forming at tables and on wheels. Drying racks and dedicated rooms for glazing and chemical applications provide essential support spaces, allowing the creative process to move safely and efficiently through the studio. The journey culminates in the new addition of a kiln area, where both gas and electric kilns provide increased capacity, flexibility, and safety while opening new artistic possibilities for students and community members. The project team worked closely with the ceramics educators and campus facilities team to shape the studio to fit the realities of teaching and making. Their expertise was essential in guiding how the new space looks and functions.

A new plaza extends the studio environment outdoors, providing space to socialize or pause at the center of multiple paths of circulation for the campus. The plaza activates the larger campus by stitching together a gap between multiple buildings.

The project represents ECC’s continued investment in the role of hands-on artmaking in the service of supporting creativity and community. It honors a thriving, decades-old ceramics program while giving it the space, tools, and environment it needs to grow.