University of the Pacific, Fletcher Jones Foundation Makerspace

Transparency as Invitation

The central move of the design was to open the building up. Large glazing panels replace opaque wall sections along the main elevations, making the activity inside visible from the campus outside. At night, the lit interior glows against the South Campus like a lantern the work made legible, the building itself a signal that something is being made here.

That transparency carries through the interior as well. Glass partitions between spaces maintain sightlines across the full floor plate. A student in the metal shop can see a peer debugging code twenty feet away. Cross-disciplinary awareness becomes a natural byproduct of simply showing up, the architecture does the work of connecting people that seven separate buildings never could.

Social to Industrial

The program is organized as a gradient from social to industrial. The Henry and Alice Hirata Welcome Lounge anchors the entry, a high-ceilinged, skylit gathering space with movable furniture that shifts easily from individual work sessions to full department reviews. The structure above is left exposed and painted white, giving the room an honest workshop quality rather than the polished feel of a conventional academic lobby.

Further in, the Professor David Fletcher Resource Center provides a staffed hub for equipment and materials, flanked by digital fabrication areas with FDM and resin 3D printers, CNC machines, and computer workstations. Color and flooring shifts between zones give the open plan a clear spatial hierarchy without resorting to full enclosure.

The machine shop occupies the most industrial end of the building, lit by a continuous skylight running its full length a deliberate choice that transforms a space that typically goes without natural light. Yellow translucent safety curtains at the machining stations provide the required separation while preserving the visual connectivity that defines the facility throughout.