By Alberto Scirocco

Campus design has entered a new era. Colleges and universities are integrating experiential and digital environments as core infrastructure — not ornamental additions, but deliberate extensions of institutional mission and identity.Ìý

A recently completed project at Oakland Community College’s Culinary Studies Institute illustrates what this looks like in practice.Ìý

A Living Part of the School’s IdentityÌý

When design firm Ideation Orange engagedÌýleftchannelÌýto create a for OCC’s new culinary building, the brief was open — but the opportunity was clear. The artwork needed to do more than fill a wall. It had to embody the school’s focus on creativity, craft, and the art of cuisine.Ìý

The result wasÌýFood Is ArtÌý— a large-scale moving image piece that explores cuisine as both an artistic and emotional experience, transforming the language of cooking into a living, cinematic sculpture. Using macro lenses and high-speed cinematography, the team captured the slow rhythm and motion of ingredients as they move, transform, and combine. Designed as a long-form evolving composition rather than a loop,Ìýit’sÌýdisplayed across large screens that merge seamlessly with the building’s architecture.Ìý

“It inspires our students, faculty, and community with its visual interpretation of how food preparation trulyÌýis a craftÌýto be appreciated,” said Peter Provenzano Jr., Chancellor of Oakland Community College.Ìý

That response points to something important.ÌýFood Is ArtÌýisn’tÌýdecoration —Ìýit’sÌýbecome a living part of the school’s identity, connecting everyone who enters the space to the creative essence of the culinary arts.Ìý

Why Colleges Are Reimagining Campus SpacesÌý

Higher education faces intensifying competitive and demographic pressures. Institutional identity has become a recruitment asset. Campus experience directly influences student satisfaction and retention.Ìý

When designed strategically, experiential environments serve multiple functions at once: communicating mission and values at a visceral level, creating memorable moments that reinforce student identity with the institution, and signaling investment in student experience — a meaningful differentiator in competitive markets.Ìý

The key word isÌýstrategically. The distinction between decoration and infrastructureÌýdeterminesÌýwhether these investments deliver real value.Ìý

What This Means for Institutional PlanningÌý

For colleges evaluating facility investments, three principlesÌýemergeÌýfrom projects like this one:Ìý

Start with story, not technology. What does this space need to communicate? What student outcomes are you trying to influence? Technology and designÌýfollow fromÌýthose answers, not the reverse.Ìý

Integrate with the environment. Effective experiential design merges with architecture and reflects the energy of the space it lives in. Installations that feel bolted on quickly become invisible — or worse, liabilities.Ìý

Partner with experts who think systemically and focus on making the story visible, finding the emotional or conceptual thread that connects a piece to the place it lives in. That kind of thinking requires collaboration across architecture, digital craft, and institutional strategy — siloed expertise produces disconnected results.Ìý

The institutions winning in enrollment and reputation understand that every surface, every moment, every transition can communicate value. Experiential and digital design, when deployed strategically, transform buildings from static containers into active participants in student success and institutional mission.Ìý

The question for facility leaders is no longer whether to invest in experiential design — but how to do it in ways that earn their place.ÌýÌý

Alberto Scirocco is President and Creative Director at leftchannel, a motion- and experiential-design studio based in Columbus, Ohio. The OCC Culinary Studies Institute installation was completed in 2025 in partnership with Ideation Orange.Ìý

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