Darin Johnstone Firm Completes ArtCenter’s Mullin Transportation Design Center

On July 9, Los Angeles-based Darin Johnstone Architects (DJA), helmed by SCI-Arc faculty Darin Johnstone, announced the completion of the new Mullin Transportation Design Center (MTDC) at ArtCenter College of Design (ArtCenter). Located on the college’s South Campus at 950 South Raymond Avenue in Pasadena, California, and joining other DJA-designed spaces within the 950 Building, the MTDC is the effective revitalization of the campus’s historic “wind tunnel” space into a state-of-the-art educational facility. The comprehensive MTDC redesign ushers in a new era for ArtCenter’s world-renowned Transportation Design program—providing capability for full-scale vehicular models, better replicating the experiences of professional design studios. Together, the redesigned facilities in and around the 950 Building further bring to life the long-imagined vision for ArtCenter’s South Campus as a dynamic, creative hub that enhances the entire college.

DJA’s design nearly doubles the effective square footage of the wind tunnel, converting the barrel-vaulted, 43-foot clear high space to hold 31,000 square feet of specialized creative labs, large-scale makerspaces, classrooms, exhibition areas, studios and offices. DJA worked closely with ArtCenter to conceptualize vehicle-intensive spaces that facilitate research, experimentation and forward-thinking design with capabilities for the next generation of teaching, learning and creating. New gallery and exhibition spaces as well as a hovering mezzanine feature open opportunities to showcase, inspire and fuel imagination, displaying large-scale design projects as they take shape in alignment with ArtCenter’s “see, think, do” ethos. Taking conceptual cues from its history of housing a wind tunnel used to test supersonic aircraft, the design acknowledges the interplay of time and the evolution of design processes related to transportation and modern aviation.

The MTDC will serve as a pedestrian passthrough on a line that connects all of the buildings on ArtCenter’s South Campus. This passthrough, designed to occur on the west side of level one, also contains vertical circulation elements that allow all visitors to loop up to the hovering programs and flow around the lab spaces visible below. All of level one is accessible to full-scale vehicles and there is a “street” through the space which passes under the hovering elements and connects all labs.

The existing building’s volume presents an amazing opportunity for full-scale vehicular access and contains a poetic link to the history of transportation design, an ideal setting for speculations on its future. Throughout the mid-1900s, the massive, barrel-vaulted space was home to a supersonic wind tunnel operated by the California Institute of Technology as a testing facility for leading aerospace manufacturers including Convair, Douglas, Lockheed, McDonnell, and North American. Originally designed to simulate motion by testing objects fixed in space, the building is being converted to accept real motion. The design acknowledges the interplay of time and the evolution of design processes related to transportation and modern aviation. A taut, smooth aesthetic of strange lightness hovers in contrast to the rough lovely wooden vessel of the original wind tunnel.

For more than 20 years, SCI Arc Faculty member Darin Johnstone has led an architecture practice devoted to the concept of architecture as an overarching discipline. Consequently, DJA has accepted and completed a wide range of design challenges and built works across a spectrum of scales. Based in Los Angeles, DJA has a diverse portfolio, wide-ranging expertise and an award-winning practice dedicated to innovation and client engagement.

“The Mullin Transportation Design Center is more than a single project for DJA. It is the culmination of a decade of collaboration with ArtCenter and a team of people striving to create innovative learning and making spaces,” said Darin Johnstone, principal and founder of DJA and the project’s lead. “We have gained so much from this relationship and feel honored to design spaces to facilitate the college’s visionary approach to art and design education. Ultimately, our highest goal is simply to help inspire the next generation of art and design practice.”

To learn more about Darin Johnstone Architects’ MTDC building at ArtCenter, read the official press release here.