Our Campus
The Robinson Building Complex was built in 1989 as the new home of IR/PS. It was designed by Kaplan McGlaughlin Diaz of San Francisco in association with Clark Beck and Associates. The general contractor was the M. H. Golden Company. The open layout of the buildings was designed to accommodate the mild climate of San Diego and provide numerous spectacular views of the nearby Pacific Coast.
Clustered around a central plaza, the four major buildings of the complex reflect embellishments on simple geometric forms. The Dean's complex is a square. The faculty and staff office tower is a rectangle. The Robinson Auditorium is a circle with a tangent slice, and the building housing the library, large classrooms, and computer lab facilities is a parallelogram.
The buildings are sheathed in Jerusalem marble from a now-closed quarry in the Middle East. Its angular iron work echos similar embellishments at the UCSD Price Center, constructed the same year at the Robinson Building Complex and also designed by Kaplan McGlaughlin Diaz. Both buildings were acknowledged with several design awards. The Robinson Building was given a 1991 Award of Merit by the American Institute of Architects California Council and a 1993 Award of Honor For Design Excellence from the American Institute of Architects San Francisco Chapter.
The site chosen for the complex was originally an open area, north of Thurgood Marshall College (then Third College), and near the San Diego Supercomputer Center and the Institute of Americas complex. In recent years, as UCSD has expanded, other buildings were constructed in the neighborhood of IR/PS, including facilities for Eleanor Roosevelt College, the Social Sciences Building, the RIMAC sports complex, and several parking structures.
