Water + Life Campus

Lehrer + Gangi Design + Build

Everyone knew the creation of Diamond Valley Lake, a reservoir that contains enough reserve water to sustain a drought-stricken Southern California for six months, near Hemet, Calif., would be a massive undertaking—a civil engineering marvel involving more than 40 million cubic yards of foundation excavation for its three dams. What they didn't anticipate, however, was the treasure trove of Pleistocene epoch fossils embedded in the valley floor. Included among the finds: bones and skeletons from mammoth, mastodon, and other species—including the giant long-horned bison and North American lion—whose existence had never been documented in the area.

The thousands of prehistoric remains begged for a place for preservation and interpretation. And thus was born the Western Center for Archaeology and Paleontology. Paired with the Center for Water Education, a nonprofit center whose focus is raising public awareness of the importance of water conservation, the two institutions constitute what's known as the Water + Life campus, which opened in November 2006.

“These museums are a great gift to the community,” says architect Michael B. Lehrer, one of the collaborators on the project. “They are created as artistic elements as well as learning experiences and living laboratories for students and scholars.”

Lehrer, principal of Los Angeles–based Lehrer Architects, joined forces with architect Mark Gangi and his brother, developer/ construction manager Frank Gangi, in a design/build partnership that came together specifically to work on the Diamond Valley Lake museums. Known as Lehrer + Gangi Design + Build, the collaboration dedicated itself to preserving the project's design goals while meeting strict budget limitations.

Michael B. Lehrer Principal Lehrer + Gangi Design + Build

In truth, the $37 million center is a complex of six separate buildings organized as a monumental frontispiece to the reservoir and a civic-scaled entrance to the monumental rocky, sun-parched site. “It's out in the middle of a large landscape,” says Mark Gangi, of Gangi Architects in Burbank. “So it was important to have an iconic presence.” Ten 46-foot-tall towers march across the façade, evoking images of monumental ruins from far across the valley. With 23 acres of land at its disposal and program needs requiring some 60,000 square feet of space, the design team quickly gravitated toward a campus plan.

The buildings are ordered by a rigorous grid that sets up framed views of the surrounding landscape. Gangi likens the site plan—which features a radial “parking grove,” a stepped garden, and a broad courtyard framed by two loggias—to French garden architecture. “We were inspired by classical examples like Versailles, a building that is powerful from a distance, but dissolves into the landscape as you get closer.” The motive, he adds, was to lend the complex a civic spirit.

Mark Gangi Co-Lead Design Principal Lehrer + Gangi Design + Build

Because of the conservation goals of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which is the engine behind Diamond Valley Lake and the Center for Water Education, the architects played the sustainability card early in the design process. “The museums are about the conservation of water and the legacy of the earth,” notes Gangi. “The buildings themselves had to reflect those goals.” The museums exceed California's Title 24 Energy Conformance standards, with 3,000 solar panels that generate 68 percent of the power for the facility. That computes to a projected net savings of about $13 million during their life span.

By and large, materials choices were made in service of the mandate for energy efficiency and sustainability. “All the cladding materials of the building have the insulation on the exterior—that helps a lot to lower heat gain,” says Gangi. The signature towers, for example, are sheathed in interlocking Centria metal panels backed with foam. “We wanted something that was visually powerful from a distance,” says Gangi. “At the same time, the metal also reflects heat off the building.”

The two 156-foot-long, steel-framed loggias are freestanding, topped by custom glass panels imbedded with 6-inch-by-6-inch solar cells manufactured by Sharp. Public education was an important component of the project, so it seemed appropriate to make the solar cells visible in some way. Upon entering, visitors are greeted with an exhibit explaining how the panels work. Most of the buildings' solar power is generated by large photovoltaic arrays out of sight on top of the museums' roofs.

Lehrer + Gangi clad the sides of the loggia frames in three layers of perforated aluminum bands—two rows on the outside columns and one on the inside. Says Lehrer: “As you look through the loggia, it evokes the feeling of water because of the moiré pattern. It looks dense, but it is really just air. It gives light and shadow a place to do its dance.”

Massive banners hang on the east-facing façade of the complex, shading 10,000 square feet of glass from the harsh desert sun. Large-scale pixilated images on fiber-mesh fabric hint at the content of the museums, with blue images on the water side, earth tones on the archaeology side. But their primary function is to aid the pursuit of LEED Gold certification, an intervention resulting from modeling studies by the mechanical engineer that recommended fixed shades to reduce the buildings' cooling load. That played right into the designers' hands. “It makes it look like a lively public place, rather than a public works project,” Gangi says. “And it provides something useful for the museum.”

Inside, a radiant floor system for heating and cooling keeps the temperature stable. But Lehrer and Gangi were not content with simple concrete slabs underfoot. They worked with the exhibit designers and paint contractor to come up with a variety of finishes that lend interest to the floor. Contractors ground off the top layer of concrete to expose the aggregate, then applied a light acid treatment and stained the surface. “So it gives it a very heavy, rocky finish. It looks like stone in some areas,” Gangi points out.

The variety of functions and demand for flexibility led to some strategic choices of doors in the complex. Each museum, for example, has a dedicated classroom/meeting building, and the clients needed to use those spaces for large events such as lectures or for small-scale workshops. A system of Modern-fold operable partitions provided the solution, allowing the two classrooms to operate as one large space or up to four small meeting rooms. The rest of the interior that isn't devoted to public space is devoted to exhibition space. In the Western Center for Archaeology and Paleontology, those spaces include actual fossils recovered from the lake site, models showcasing the ancient creatures, and workstations, like that shown above, which allow visitors to interact with digital information and samples to get a glimpse into the world of the scientists who recovered the specimens.

Thresholds from the service yards into the respective galleries or laboratories are fitted with industrial metal roll-up doors to accommodate large artifacts or exhibit components. “They may have anything from a large bone to a covered wagon that will come into the museum space,” says Gangi. While most of the interior doors are metal, the desire to bring daylight deep into the administrative areas of the water education center prompted the use of glass doors on perimeter offices.

The environmental mandate guided many other specifications, including sustainable Interface carpet, low-VOC paints from Frazee Paint, and Quarry Tile Co.'s EcoTile, which contains approximately 34 percent recycled material. In the restrooms, water-saving fixtures—including water-free urinals donated by Sloan Valve and dual-flush Caroma toilets—reinforce the conservation ethic. And, ultimately, the message is what this place is all about, says Lehrer: “We feel we have built something that is of consequence,” he notes. “It is beautiful, it is sustainable, and we delivered on what we promised.”
Vernon Mays

PROJECT The Center for Water Education and Western Center for Archaeology and Paleontology
LOCATION Hemet, Calif.
CLIENT The Center for Water Education and Western Center for Archaeology and Paleontology
ARCHITECT Lehrer + Gangi Design + Build, Los Angeles—Michael B. Lehrer, Mark Gangi (principals); Anne Marie Kaufman Perlov (project architect); Jonathan Dawang, Steve Deyer, Jovan Gayton, Monica Grau, Han Hsieh, Nerin Kadribegovic, Chris Mundweil, Yuri Osipov, Maria Rockstroh, Robin Sakahara (project team)
ENGINEERS Jovan Gayton (project); KPFF Consulting Engineers (civil); Nabih Youssef & Associates (structural); IBE Consulting Engineers (mechanical and plumbing); Vector Delta Design Group (electrical and solar); Geomatrix Consultants (soils)
CONSTRUCTION MANAGER Lehrer + Gangi Design + Build
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Mia Lehrer & Associates
CONSULTANTS Zinner Consultants (LEED); Design Craftsmen (exhibit designers); F/X Scenery & Display (TV studio interior and set); WSI (TV studio weather first station)
PHOTOGRAPHERS Benny Chan; Michael B. Lehrer; Mark Gangi
COST $36,819,064
SQUARE FOOTAGE 62,215 square feet
COMPLETED November 2006

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