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Located 30 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, CalArts occupies 60 acres on hills overlooking the incorporated city of Santa Clarita, which encompasses the towns of Valencia, Newhall, Saugus and Canyon Country. The Santa Clarita Valley is bordered by the Tehachapi Mountains to the north, the San Gabriels to the east and the Santa Susannas to the west—all visible from campus. Historically, the valley has been devoted to agriculture and cattle ranching, but the last three decades have seen the northward expansion of metropolitan Los Angeles. This ongoing development has resulted in new residential and commercial districts and an ever-growing population of more than 150,000.

At the center of the CalArts campus is a sprawling five-level, 500,000-square-foot building, where, according to Walt Disney’s original vision for CalArts, different artistic disciplines share space and commingle under one roof. This structure houses classrooms, art studios, animation studios, music rehearsal rooms and dance studios; galleries, theaters for drama, dance and film, and a music performance hall; costume, scenery and machine shops; photo labs, computer and media labs, editing suites for film and video, and a digital recording studio; a cafeteria and a coffee shop; and the CalArts Library.

Other buildings on the CalArts campus include the Chouinard Hall dormitory, the Ahmanson Hall apartment complex, the Eli and Edythe Broad graduate art studios, and several annexes filled with additional classrooms, studios, a writing lab and other facilities.

Out of doors, tennis courts and a swimming pool are available to students throughout the academic year, while spacious lawns dotted with shade trees, open fields and sloping hillsides allow for quiet reading or casual sports.

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