Founded in 1908, Vista Del Mar is a 114-year-old non-profit organization that began service to the community by founding the first cottage-style orphanage in Southern California. Today, they provide a trauma-responsive continuum of services to empower children, youth, and families in Southern California to lead fulfilling lives. Located on an 18-acre campus in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles, the organization has largely been focused on inward operations but in recent years has begun to open to the surrounding community. The Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Center is a major step in that direction.

The Center is a remodel of and addition to a 1950s-era Temple located at the center of Vista Del Mar’s campus and was conceived and designed to be the home of Vista Del Mar's innovative therapeutic performing arts program. The Center provides space for both learning and performing dance, music, and theatrical productions. Accessory spaces allow for production coordination, stage craft, dressing and changing, rehearsal, and classrooms.

The building is designed as a series of vignettes that express motion, music, and movement. A semi-translucent façade wraps the structure and, in the evening when the lights turn on, the building transforms into a glowing heart at the center of the campus. Besides adding a distinctive aesthetic, the highly durable polycarbonate façade is made from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic and can be recycled again at the end of its lifecycle. A key challenge was to preserve as much of the existing structure as possible. The Temple’s foundation and structural diaphragm were saved and became the framework of the new building. 

Directly behind the façade, a series of rhythmic columns create an interplay of light and shadow. The resulting gradient pattern works in conjunction with the primary stair and lobby, both of which vary in width (in plan) to create a sense of compression and expansion. This concept drew inspiration from "Lamentation," the Martha Graham dance piece in which a dancer struggles within a garment, and as a metaphor for the struggles many people with Autism experience every day.

The building has comfortable spaces for flexible learning, a color palette in light tones, and acoustic systems that aid those with sound sensitivity. Individual rooms are designed to accommodate multiple purposes and may be a classroom by morning, rehearsal space by day, and green room by night.

The 10,550 sf Center was built with a conservative budget but carefully selected materials, often in standard off-the-shelf finishes, allow for several key design features including wood beams with acoustic fuzz in the theater, a wood sprung stage with different surface options for different types of performances, and gleaming white terrazzo in the box office lobby, stair, and entry lobby.