Santa Monica College facilities continue to rack up design awards - the latest are statewide honors for the Quad and the Performing Arts Center, both of which opened a year ago.

The Quad has won the Award of Excellence in the Specialized Facility category of the Community College Facility Coalition's 2009 Professional Design Awards. The Performing Arts Center won the Award of Honor in the Campus Completion category, which is given for a facility a college did not previously have but should have to be considered a complete community college campus.

"It's an honor that these outstanding projects have been recognized statewide by our peers throughout the community college system," said Greg Brown, SMC director of facilities planning.

This is the second time the Quad - a four-acre heavily landscaped area that has transformed the look and feel of the campus - has won special recognition. Earlier this year, the $9 million facility won the 2009 Los Angeles Business Council's Los Angeles Architectural Award in the Landscape Architecture category.

The Quad features a handsome promenade of pavers lined by palm trees and flanked by two large water fountains. Grass areas, trees, large planters and seating areas fill out the Quad. It was designed by tBP Architects and Meléndrez landscape architects.

This is the third award for the Performing Arts Center, which encompasses The Broad Stage and Edye Second Space. In 2007, the facility won two awards even before it opened - the California Construction Magazine McGraw Hill Construction Award for Best Higher Education and Los Angeles Business Council's Los Angeles Architectural Award for Outstanding Architecture. Designed by Renzo Zecchetto Architects of Santa Monica, the $42 million state-of-the-art center has blossomed in one year into a major regional center for the arts. The 499-seat Broad Stage, in particular, has won wide praise for its design and outstanding acoustics.