Sculptural roof tops new arts centre designed by wHY for California's Pomona College
LA studio wHY has completed a new home for the art department at Pomona College in Claremont, California, with ample gallery space and studios that offer views of the surrounding landscape (+ slideshow).
![Pomona College Art Center by wHY](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/08/Pomona-College-Art-Center_wHY_dezeen_468_44.jpg)
The 35,000-square-foot (3,250 square metre) Studio Art Hall includes an auditorium, classrooms, multipurpose work areas, a flexible gallery and teaching space, a permanent gallery, and studios. Outdoor terraces can also be used for meetings and classes.
![Pomona College Art Center by wHY](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/08/Pomona-College-Art-Center_wHY_dezeen_468_27.jpg)
The design takes advantage of the region's pleasant year-round climate. Most of the circulation is outdoors, and a central courtyard provides gathering space for chance encounters among students and faculty.
![Pomona College Art Center by wHY](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/08/Pomona-College-Art-Center_wHY_dezeen_468_22.jpg)
The facility comprises four freestanding volumes gathered under the large curving roof. Each volume is clad in a different type of stucco, a common material on the campus.
![Pomona College Art Center by wHY](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/08/Pomona-College-Art-Center_wHY_dezeen_468_8.jpg)
"They are in similar colour but some with very rough aggregates and some with a refined finish," Kulapat Yantrasast, founder of wHY, told Dezeen. "I want the building to be about light, textures and materials."
![Pomona College Art Center by wHY](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/08/Pomona-College-Art-Center_wHY_dezeen_468_6.jpg)
The steel and wood overhead structure unites the building and is visible from within interior rooms through clerestory windows.
Floor-to-ceiling glazing in many of the studios offers views of the nearby San Gabriel Mountains. The area's topography help inspire the building's form.
![Pomona College Art Center by wHY](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/08/Pomona-College-Art-Center_wHY_dezeen_468_13.jpg)
The project is the first purpose-built art facility at Pomona. Located at the centre of campus, the new facility contains a passageway that forms a major circulatory route for the college.
![Pomona College Art Center by wHY](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/08/Pomona-College-Art-Center_wHY_dezeen_468_40.jpg)
"It truly changes people's perception of the art department," Yantrasast said of the new facility. "Art and non-art students alike are using and hacking the building for their own programs. It's so fun to witness."
![Pomona College Art Center by wHY](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/08/Pomona-College-Art-Center_wHY_dezeen_468_31.jpg)
wHY Objects Workshop, the firm's furniture and art division, created a suite of custom stools and drawing benches that the students can use.
Other architects who have designed custom-fittings for arts schools include Crab Studio, who added colourful, irregularly shaped furniture to its architecture faculty building at Bond University in Australia.
![Pomona College Art Center by wHY](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/08/Pomona-College-Art-Center_wHY_dezeen_468_29.jpg)
Pomona College is a top-ranked small liberal arts college and is part of the Claremont Colleges, a consortium of small schools including Pitzer, Claremont McKenna, Scripps, and Harvey Mudd colleges, all of which are in California. The group rivals the so-called "Little Ivies" collection of small liberal arts institutions and the Seven Sisters colleges of the East Coast.
![Pomona College Art Center by wHY](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/08/Pomona-College-Art-Center_wHY_dezeen_468_33.jpg)
Based in LA, wHY has designed a number of art-related projects, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan and the David Kordansky Gallery in LA.
Photography is by Iwan Baan.