Orange Coast College, Business Education Building

Orange Coast College, Business Education Building

Neutra and Alexander’s design for Business Education at Orange Coast College comprises of three buildings set in a T-shaped compound, each composed of brick and stucco. These buildings included classrooms as well as laboratories for secretarial, accounting, and office services. Outdoor features, including courtyards and open-air walkways, form a web that connects the buildings, creating a series of interlocking spaces. A garden court anchors the complex, and wooden louvers provide shade for those sitting in it. Angled brick walls to the southwest are also intended to protect students from the sun, and they support a length of transparent plastic that forms the roof for an open-air corridor. On an adjacent building, the overhang of an open-air hallway is composed of varnished, tongue-and-groove wood, echoing the ceiling of the building it is attached to, but running perpendicular to it.

Adapted from Neutra – Complete Works by Barbara Lamprecht (Taschen, 2000), p. 269.