Significant exterior and interior upgrades were designed by FPBA to BioMed Realty Trust’s facility at Road to the Cure, a 1980s vintage building located in La Jolla, California. The 68,000-square-foot building was completely renovated to include four upgraded laboratory spaces that take maximum advantage of both natural light and the landscaped views outdoors. Reconfigured laboratory suites respond to a variety of tenant needs to allow for maximum flexibility as end-user requirements evolve. The new conference center with contemporary audio visual capabilities is expandable to the exterior where outside meeting and gathering areas are carefully integrated with new landscape and site enhancements. The building’s exterior areas were designed as direct extensions of the interior upgrades, with new canopies visually expanding from the base building. The new technology-based fitness center provides tenants a welcome opportunity to enjoy physical activities away from their desk at any time during the day.
Nokia is a leading global company focused on the key growth areas of wireline and wireless telecommunications. A pioneer in mobile telephony, Nokia is the world’s leading developer of digital handsets and wireless data, the world’s second largest manufacturer of all mobile-phones, and one of the two leading suppliers of GSM-based cellular networks. The Nokia Creation Center in San Diego was designed according to the idea of connection; the connection to the landscape, connection to the sky, and the connection of people and ideas. Ferguson Pape Baldwin Architects created a site plan for the campus that encourages interaction among the various research, development and production personnel. FPBA invented an architecture that is as technologically derived as Nokia’s products and incorporated a water feature throughout the property that reflects the Finnish connection to water and serene environments. A result of this project is a multiple award-winning architecture that has quickly become a regional icon and immediate acceleration of Nokia’s ability to recruit engineers.
La Jolla Country Day School (LJCDS) is a co-educational, non-sectarian, independent school providing a college-preparatory education for 1,050 students in Nursery through Grade 12 in La Jolla, California. The Library Academic Center, located in the heart of the prestigious La Jolla Country Day School campus, is the signature building and new front door to the campus. The new library houses an art gallery, admissions suite and lower school library. An adjacent multipurpose room offers “flex” space – whether auditorium seating for 150, performance, testing or meeting space. The second floor houses the middle and upper school library that includes seminar rooms for small group work and the Learning Resource Center for mentoring and tutoring. The third floor houses staff offices and the board conference room. The Library Academic Center is a facility that demonstrates a commitment to social progress through the school’s mission of preparing students for a lifetime of intellectual exploration, personal growth and social responsibility.
This campus houses one of the most advanced facilities of its type in the world, setting new standards not only for biotech process design and automation but also in project execution and delivery. Since its completion, this 90,000-liter-capacity facility has produced significant cancer and arthritis therapies for the U.S. and the world. While all mammalian process-based, the facility has thrived in its ability to campaign manufacture the blockbuster drugs Rituxan (first ever FDA-approved biotech therapy for cancer), Avastin and Actemra. FPBA created an inspiring, worker-friendly campus with flexibility for unknown growth. The team also master planned an expandable campus (up to 1.2 million square feet) supported by a central utility “spine” to which future buildings could be readily connected. The result of this project is a large-scale, integrated biotech manufacturing campus that was master planned in a design-build collaborative effort with the client, contractors and many engineering disciplines to handle the profound special needs of its client and the biopharmaceutical industry.
FPBA designed a full interior renovation in this six-story building for Human Resources and Information Technology group’s new workspace environments. The design team was challenged with implementing the first open office floor plans for Qualcomm in San Diego with an open ceiling utilizing floating soffits. The building had only 12’-6” floor to floor heights, so installation of new heat pumps, power and lighting above and around these soffits required intense coordination from the entire team. The walls surrounding an existing convenience stair between the third and fifth floor were removed to provide an open and inviting connection between collaboration/break rooms on three floors. The sixth floor Candidate Care Center was outfitted with lounge seating and interactive product displays to engage interview candidates with the Qualcomm culture.
This project is a combination of three separate projects linked together as a phased relocation of four different departments within the College of Science at San Diego State University. FPBA created a new building design that met the needs of a modern university and integrated the building into a historic college campus. The first element of the project involved renovating the interior and exterior of the 1960, 132,000-square-foot chemistry/geology building to a state-of-the-art building with soft science classrooms, computer laboratories and offices. An essential part of the process included the decontamination of chemical, asbestos and lead paint hazards. The second element involved restructuring and modernizing 26,000 square feet of interior space within the business administration and math building, originally built in 1964. The third element involved replacing the substandard education building and constructing a 62,000-square-foot landscaped plaza connecting the major campus circulation paths.
The City of Poway wanted to consolidate its existing operations and expand the capacity of the City Council Chambers and City Offices. FPBA worked with the City to determine a municipal building size that met its present and long-term needs. The Poway City Offices were designed to centrally locate all public interaction with City departments around the main two-story entry lobby and feature stair. FPBA created a sustainable design that offers a interactive environment for the community and its elected officials. The FPBA team expanded the capacity of the City Council Chambers by designing a facility able to accommodate both civic and private functions. FPBA was able to consolidate the City of Poway public service departments while maintaining City operations during a phased construction.
Murrieta’s 34,000-square-foot City Hall was designed by FPBA in the City’s new town square, which shares common pedestrian space with the library, police station, senior center and amphitheater pavilion. It brings a welcoming environment for the city administration and elected officials to interact with the citizens of Murrieta. The iconic Clock Tower and craftsman-style design incorporates a modern tilt-up building with the quality and scale appropriate for the site and the immediate adjacent architecture. The new City Hall consists of two-story office space, a 130-seat city council chamber, public meeting spaces and a public services counter.
Located in the Fallbrook Town Center, nestled against the slope on Mission Road, this LEED Silver library provides an inviting facade to approaching pedestrians, engaging them in a green roof garden set in a farm aesthetic. Offering a multitude of cultural and educational programs to the entire community, it’s equipped with divisible community rooms; an exterior Reading Garden encompassing art, water, and a lush vegetation; an inviting Children’s Area; and a double-height Great Room flooded with natural light that showcases desired reading material from all over the world. The innovative, highly visible saddleback standing seam metal roof form denotes the library entry and reinforces the architectural style. The integration of exterior seating, entry plaza, patios and gardens results in a transparent relationship between the indoor and outdoor environments that welcomes those approaching the building and captivates those within. Local artists provided their unique talents in furnishing special items for the library, from hanging fruit and a 10-foot sunflower in the Children’s Area to a stunning art security screen, gates, and trellis at the Reading Garden. The new Fallbrook Library creates a timeless stage for residents and visitors alike, to come together and share in the wealth of knowledge that has been made so readily accessible by the County of San Diego for generations to come.
For the Elephant Odyssey Exhibit on 7.5 acres, FPBA worked to integrate four Asian elephants from the San Diego Zoo Safari Park with the San Diego Zoo’s three African elephants to the newly designed space. This provided a perfect opportunity to replace the outdated elephant habitat as well as over 9 acres of other aging exhibits in the center of the Zoo. The resulting redevelopment was the Zoo’s largest single project in its history touching over 30 separate species in 21 individual structures. The redevelopment includes updates and expansions to primary utilities, demolition of nine aged exhibits, mass grading of the entire site (over 8 acres), construction of major roads and retaining walls and mitigation of hazardous materials prior to demolition. The range of exhibits and accommodations, delivered as a single design and construction project, represents many individual projects, each requiring individual programming and interface with separate curators, keepers and stakeholders.
