The center of campus life 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 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 hall; costume, scenery and machine shops; photo labs, computer and media labs, editing suites for film and video, and a digital recording studio; a library and a cafeteria.
Other buildings on the CalArts campus include the Chouinard dormitory, the Ahmanson apartment complex, the Eli and Edythe Broad graduate art studios, and several annexes filled with additional classrooms, studios, a writing lab and other facilities. Tennis courts and an outdoor swimming pool are available throughout the year, while spacious lawns dotted with shade trees, open fields and sloping hillsides allow for quiet reading or casual sports.