LCAD Tops Out the Patrick Howe Quilter Innovation Center

On Friday, October 23, the LCAD community gathered on campus to sign the final structural beam of the Patrick Howe Quilter Innovation Center. Then they watched it rise to the top of the building. Students, faculty, staff, leadership, donors and Laguna Beach Mayor Mark Orgill all added their names to the beam. The topping out ceremony marks the completion of the building’s framework, an important milestone in construction.

“The new Patrick Howe Quilter Innovation Center is an investment in our campus and the future of creative education,” said Mark Saville, Interim President and CEO of LCAD. “It was designed to bring artistic mastery, emerging technologies, industry engagement and community together in one shared space where the next generation of artists and designers can thrive.”

LCAD broke ground in September 2025 on the first phase of its campus development. That first phase is the two-story, 22,000-square-foot Patrick Howe Quilter Innovation Center, which will serve as the centerpiece of the campus. The building will include digital arts classrooms and the Roland Print Lab, generously provided by Roland DG Corporation. It will also have a 3,000-square-foot multipurpose exhibition space, indoor and outdoor event spaces, and a bistro café.
LPA Design Studios designed the contemporary, fire-resistant structure to blend into the surrounding canyon landscape. Construction is expected to be completed by November 2027.

The building is made possible by a $40 million gift from Patrick H. Quilter, co-founder of QSC Audio and Quilter Labs. It is the largest philanthropic contribution in LCAD’s 65-year history, and it launched the first phase of Designing Futures, the college’s $100 million capital campaign to modernize the campus.

“I am very fortunate to be in a position to underwrite this building,” Quilter said. “It will live beyond me and support the arts and community that allowed me to have a rich and wonderful life.”

For Mayor Orgill, the ceremony reflected the city’s identity as much as the college’s. “There are so many people here today who have played such an important role in Laguna Beach’s evolution as an art community,” he said. “LCAD is such a driving force in keeping the creative culture alive.”

For more than 65 years, Laguna College of Art + Design has prepared artists and designers to shape their communities and the world around them. The Patrick Howe Quilter Innovation Center begins the next chapter of that story. It is a space built for experimentation, collaboration and the creative technologies that are redefining how art and design is made and experienced.