UCI Ring Mall Plaza

The Master Plan for the Henry Samueli School of Engineering at UCI encompasses a total of 4.5 acres along a linear promenade that joins a very diverse set of architectural styles and uses. The phased project consists of five separate plan areas that are to be built as funding becomes available. The first phase, known as Ring Mall Plaza, was completed in the summer of 2003.

IVY served as the Master Plan Designer for the entire project and as Landscape Architect for Phase 1 implementation, the Ring Mall Plaza. This effort included paving, planting, lighting, grading and irrigation design. IVY led the sub-consultant team of Civil and Electrical Engineers.

The principal program elements include decorative planting and paving, drainage, water features, site furnishings and sculptural monumentation. The Ring Mall Plaza program layout aims at a harmonious meshing of several disparate functions, including outdoor study and relaxation spaces adjacent to UCI’s mass-pedestrian circulation spine, the Ring Mall.

The Master Plan Concept translates into a fifty-foot wide circulation column that anchors all existing and proposed buildings to a sculptural arrangement of planting and paving. The flexibility of the design produces rich and complex spaces from the interaction of a simple modular system with the idiosyncratic character of the existing site. A continuously changing linear granite path originates at the canted reflective pool and extends to the mall’s terminus at Aldrich Green, more than 30 feet below. The design is simple and carefully detailed articulation of flat planes with various hard and soft materials. Finished stainless steel components communicate the sense of craft and precision associated with the engineering disciplines, shining in varying intensities depending on ambient conditions. Lighting is one of the central design elements that transform the promenade in dramatic ways.