Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Las Positas College

Student Services and Administration Building

  • 07/01/14
Las Positas College Student Services and Administration Building 

PHOTOS © TIM GRIFFITH

The new Student Services and Administration Building is a galvanizing addition to Las Positas College. Amidst the rolling hills of Livermore, CA, the spacious campus enjoys tremendous views, but horizontal expansion had led to scattered and remote services. The stakeholder engagement process involved two dozen meetings with end-users to best co-locate, right size and reposition program elements. The design, by Steinberg Architects, resulted in functional adjacencies that best leverage interdepartmental communication and maximizes the efficiency of services.

The solution entails a two-story structure that responds to environmental factors while addressing the many intricacies associated with circulation, way-finding and hierarchy. To take advantage of the visual and physical connections between the interior and the exterior, a double-height glass-enclosed gallery was created that allows for entries on both floors. This space serves as a central organizing element that scales and visibly creates an indelible link between the building and the newly defined campus quad.

The project provides a welcoming and prominent campus gateway and consolidates student services centrally to capitalize on service delivery, while also collecting campus administrative offices in one location. The Office of the President strategically overlooks the Campus Boulevard, which cohesively links the upper and lower campus. Natural light is filtered through expansive window and glass wall systems to enhance visual cues and nurture a healthy work environment. Each of three vice presidents is located within a suite of offices and workstations clustered around a central reception area. All departments share common resources such as conference rooms, workrooms and a staff break room.

The lively cafeteria on the ground floor contains a separate café, while a folding partition provides a discrete faculty/staff dining area. This concept of co-locating food services with staff offices brings vibrancy and energy to the building while providing opportunities for student interaction and engagement with administration.

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

Featured

  • Spaces4Learning Launches 2026 Facilities and Construction Brief Survey

    Spaces4Learning recently launched the 2026 Facilities and Construction Brief Survey, which collects data on the previous year’s K–12 and higher education construction projects nationwide.

  • Q&A: How to Prevent Kitchen Grease Fires in Commercial Kitchens

    School cafeterias and university dining halls serve thousands of meals daily, relying on high-heat equipment like fryers, grills, and ovens. While these operations keep students fed, they also generate significant grease-laden vapors. Without proper controls, this grease becomes a silent fire threat. As a certified exhaust cleaning specialist and business coach who has helped hundreds of institutional facilities achieve NFPA 96 compliance, I emphasize that proactive grease management isn’t optional; it’s a core fire/life safety practice.

  • Dallas ISD Voters Approve $6.2B Bond Package

    Dallas ISD voters have approved a record-setting $6.2-billion bond package that district leaders say will modernize aging campuses, eliminate portable classrooms and reshape learning environments across one of the nation’s largest school systems.

  • Opportunity by Design Framework

    Opportunity by Design

    Educational improvement efforts often focus on curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional development, and intervention systems while treating the physical school building as background. But school design is not a passive backdrop to learning — it is a structural lever for equity.