2007 Notable Projects: College+University
Vol.02 No.02

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Architypes’ Notable Projects
Architype finds inspiration in projects that somehow redefine our understanding of a certain typology.  Through good design, these architects created smart and forward thinking solutions to the particular constraints or challenges presented by each project.  Grouped together by type, they provide a survey of innovation taking place at several different scales, promoted by both large and small firms. Presented here in the words and images of their own creative team, the following projects also offer an index of ideas and solutions as well as creative people and products within the industry.

The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Chicago, Illinois
Rafael Viñoly Architects

Photography: © Brad Feinknopf Drawings: © Rafael Viñoly Architects, PC

Rafael Viñoly Architects’ design for University of Chicago’s new Graduate School of Business makes the quad a public room that identifies with the campus and unifies the functions of the school.  By enclosing the quad in a greenhouse, the Winter Garden, the space can be used year-round and function as the main distribution hall of the building.

The Winter Garden is a steel structure with a skylight roof and glazed enclosure that maximizes daylight in the central space. The vertical thrust of the central space follows the proportions of the lancet windows of the adjacent Gothic-style Rockefeller Chapel.  The roof is a quadripartite, pointed vault, built with tubular steel members that follow the logic of the gothic method of transferring forces through thin structural members. The funneled shapes at the top of the vaults bring rainwater into the center of the four columns of the structure, which drain into a reservoir. These surfaces concentrate snow load on the column axis rather than in the span. The concave surface of the ceiling accelerates the convection of hot air towards the top of the space where it exhausts, allowing the room to be naturally ventilated year-round.

The program is organized horizontally in order to minimize the vertical movement of students and visitors. Vertical circulation encourages the use of open stairs connecting the three main levels (the student center, the teaching facilities immediately below, and the administration and recruiting areas on floor above). Three circulation cores, surrounding the Winter Garden, connect all the levels for the students, faculty and public.
The functions of the Student Center are located on the ground floor. The multi-use reception room opens directly to the central function area in the Winter Garden which fully integrates their uses.  Faculty offices, classrooms and group study rooms offer high quality environments with natural daylight and views into the Winter Garden and the surrounding community.

Owner   
University of Chicago

Architect
Rafael Viñoly Architects     
www.rvapc.com
Project Designer:
Rafael Viñoly
Project Administrator:
Jay Bargmann
Sr. Technical Director:
Charles Blomberg
Project Director:
Sandy McKee
Project Managers:
Doug Hassebroek, Douglas Zalis
Staff Designer:
Stacey Greenwald
Staff Architects:
Barnaby Wauters, Dan O’Riley

Engineer(s)
Structural: Thornton-Tomasetti,
Dewhurst Macfarlane and Partners Inc.
M, P, FP, IT, Sec.: Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann Associates
Electrical: ESD
Civil: V3 Consultants
Geotech: STS Consultants

Consultant(s)
Lighting Design: LAM Partners
A/V & Acoustics: Acentech Inc.
Code: Rolf Jensen & Assocs.
Specifications: Robert Schwartz Associates
Landscape: Sasaki Associates
Parking: Walker Parking
Security: Kroll Schiff & Assocs.

Contractor(s)
Construction Manager: Turner Construction Co.

Photographer(s)
Feinknopf Studio
www.feinknopf.com

University of Iowa School of Art & Art History, Iowa City, Iowa
Steven Holl Architects

Photography: © Andy Ryan Drawings: © Steven Holl Architects

The site presented special conditions: an existing 1937 brick building with a central body and flanking wings located along the Iowa River in addition to two existing morphologies: a lagoon and a connection to the organic geometry of nearby limestone bluffs which form the edge of the Iowa City grid. The new building straddles these two morphologies. 
The new School of Art and Art History is a hybrid instrument of open edges and open center; instead of an object, the building is a “formless” instrument. Implied rather than actual volumes are outlined in the disposition of spaces. Flat or curved planes are slotted together or assembled with hinged sections. Flexible spaces open out from studios in warm weather. The main horizontal passages are meeting places with interior glass walls that reveal work-in-progress. The interplay of light is controlled through shading created by the overlapping planar exterior. Exposed tension rods of the partial bridge section contribute to the linear and planar architecture. Interior floors are framed in exposed steel and concrete planks, with integrated air and services distribution in the core voids. The resulting architecture is a hybrid vision of the future, combining bridge and loft spaces, theory with practice and human requirements with scientific principles.
Architecture for an Art School
In FORMLESS: A User's Guide (Zone Books 1997) Rosalind Krauss and Yves Alain Bois explore the ideas of "Informe" first undertaken by Georges Bataille.  Bypassing the battle between ‘form and content,’ “formless” constitutes a third term outside of the binary thinking which is itself “formal.” Analyses of the work of Jackson Pollock, Cy Twombly, Lucio Fontana, Robert Smithson, and Gordon Matta-Clark, among others, set the framework for understanding avant-garde and modernist art practices.  (One of Jackson Pollock’s most important works belongs to the University of Iowa.)
The Architecture of the Art School explores "formless" geometries in its disposition of spaces and combinations of routes. A working and flexible teaching instrument, the building connects interior functions in spatial overlap at its center which acts as "social condenser" where ongoing work can be observed. Around the perimeter, spaces overlook, overlap, and engage the surrounding natural landscape. The dispersion and "fuzziness" of the edges is seen as way to embrace natural phenomena such as sunlight reflected off the lagoon water or off newly fallen snow in winter.
Prefabricated steel building principles, the most economical building type in America, are employed throughout the structure and materials. Steel in suspension is highly efficient. Due to its low relative height, interiors gain their character through the composition of exposed steel structure and HVAC. Metal sheets are folded, creating strength while minimizing the amount of material used.
A rich architectural language is achieved through the inventive use and combination of basic elements, such as fluorescent lighting tubes hidden by the bottom flange of steel beams, or the merging of painted ductwork with the steel structure.The red coloring of the new building relates it to the original red brick structure, as does its relatively low landscape-embracing profile. We envisioned a new facility of inspiring interior spaces and natural light working like a formless instrument toward cultural production of past, present and future art.  This first-rate art facility firmly positions The University of Iowa at the pinnacle of art and art history education in America.

Owner                                   
University of Iowa

Architect                                
Steven Holl Architects
www.stevenholl.com
DesignArchitects:
Steven Holl, Chris McVoy, Martin Cox
Associate in Charge:
Martin Cox
Project Architects:
Li Hu, Gabriela Barman-Kramer
Project Team:
Arnault Biou, Regina Chow, Elsa Chryssochoides, Hideki Hirahara, Brian Melcher, Chris Otterbine, Susi Sanchez, Irene Vogt, Urs Vogt

Architect
Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck Architecture
www.hlkb.com

Engineer(s)
Structural:
Guy Nordenson and Associates
Structural Engineering Associates
Mechanical:         
Alvine and Associates
Civil:
Shive-Hattery

Consultant(s)
Curtain Wall:
WJ Higgins & Co.

Contractor(s)
GeneralContractor: 
Larson Construction

Photographer(s)
Andy Ryan Photography, Inc
©Andy Ryan

Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art New Academic Building, New York, NY
mOrphosis

Drawings: © mOrphosis

The new academic facility is conceived as a stacked vertical piazza, contained within a semi-transparent envelope that articulates the classroom, laboratory and art studio spaces. The vertical campus is organized around a central atrium that rises to the full height of the building. This connective volume, spanned by sky bridges, opens up view corridors across Third Avenue to the Foundation Building.

The interior space configuration encourages interconnection between the school’s Engineering, Art, and Architecture departments. All institutional amenities -- including meeting rooms, social spaces, seminar rooms, wireless hubs and computer drop-in centers -- are located in the fourth and eighth story sky lobbies that surround the atrium. The skip-stop elevator system makes trips exclusively to the fourth and seventh floors, drawing occupants to use, and congregate on, the grand stair; in practice, 50% of people will use the stairs as their sole means of circulation. These key social spaces for students, faculty, and visitors become the places where education informally takes place.

The building’s physical and visual permeability helps integrate the college into its neighborhood.  At street level, the transparent facade invites the neighborhood to observe and to take part in the intensity of activity contained within.  Many of the public functions (including retail space and a lobby exhibition gallery) are located at ground level, and a second gallery and a 200-seat auditorium are easily accessible from the street.

The open, accessible building is exemplary as sustainable, energy-efficient architecture. A steel-and-glass skin improves the building’s performance through control of daylight, energy use, and selective natural ventilation. The double skin system allows for heightened performance and dynamic composition on several levels: the operable panels create a continually moving pattern, provide surface variety on the facade, reduce the influx of heat radiation during the summer, and give users control over their interior environment and views to the outside.

Owner
Cooper Union

Architect
mOrphosis
www.morphosis.net
Principal / Design Director:
Thom Mayne
Project Manager: Silvia Kuhle
Project Architect: Pavel Getov
Project Designers: Chandler Ahrens, Jean Oei
Project Team: Irena Bedenikovic, Natalia Traverso Caruana, Salvador Hidalgo, Debbie Lin, Kristina Loock, Go-Woon Seo
IT Co-ordinator: Marty Doscher
Project Assistants: Ben Damron, Graham Ferrier
Model Team: Reinhard Schmoelzer with Patrick Dunn-Baker, Charles Austin, Sean Anderson, Domenique Cheng, Soohyun Cheng, Eui Yeob Jeong, Amy Kwok, Shannon Loew

Architect                
Gruzen Samton, LLP
www.gruzensamton.com

Engineers/Consultants
MEP: IBE, Syska Hennessy
Structural: John A. Martin Assocs., Goldstein Assocs.
Civil: Langan
Lab:Steve Rosenstein Assocs.
Cost: Davis Langdon
Fire: Arup Fire
Performing Arts/Media: Auerbach Pollock Friedlander
Expeditor: Berzak Schoen Ltd
LEED: Davis Langdon
Lighting: HLB Lighting
Acoustics: Newson Brown
Landscape: Mathews Nielsen
Graphics: Pentagram Design
IT/AV/Security: Syska Hennessy, Barnes Wentworth
Vertical Transportation: VDA
Construction Management: F.J. Sciame Construction Co., Inc
Project Management: Jonathan Rose Companies
Environmental: Atelier Ten
Façade: Gordon H Smith Corp.
Waterproofing: Henshell & Buccellato
Commissioning: Horizon Engineering Assocs.
Geotech: Mueser Rutledge
Co-Generation: OfficePower and Source One
Consulting Engineers: RWDI

Simons Rock College of Bard Daniel Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA
Ann Beha Architects

Photography: © Peter Vanderwarker Drawings: © Ann Beha Architects

Located on an old working farm, the existing campus is a place of contrasts. Dense forest is broken by large meadows, which are spotted with old farm buildings, an occasional historic structure and a series of 1960’s vintage campus buildings. The building site is on gently sloping ground between a wooded wetland and an old orchard field that fronts the main public road.
The sloping site was used to the architect’s advantage by creating entries to the facility on two levels. On the lower level, students and staff arrive at the facility by approaching the interior ‘Lawn Court’ from the campus center on a new boardwalk that passes through the wooded wetland. Off campus visitors arrive on the upper level, which is marked by the glowing mass of the dance studio and the rich cedar siding of the studio theatre. Both entries meet in the double height lobby space that serves the theatres and dance studio. The large window wall in the lobby looks into the interior courtyard, back to the traditional center of campus and out to the Berkshire Hills beyond.
The facility was designed to maximize flexibility, adaptability and collaboration. The performing arts are sandwiched between the visual arts wing, hosting the ‘clean ‘arts - electronic arts studio, midi sound studio, digital arts, photography, painting, drawing and printmaking spaces, and the ‘dirty’ arts of the shop building, housing ceramics, metal and wood working, set and assembly shops and ceramics, plaster and computer controlled modeling studios. An electronic backbone of circuitry was installed to allow full collaboration between the digital art spaces and performing spaces.
The Lawn Court was designed as a multi-use courtyard that can function as a gathering space and/or performance amphitheater, with a large sliding door opening right onto the stage space. Large garage doors in the shop building allow the work going on in these studios to spill outside onto the Art Court, further animating the entire facility and fostering cross disciplinary collaboration.
The Performing Arts Center includes a 350-seat Mainstage Theatre with fly space, a 100-seat studio theatre, dance studio, lobby, lobby space and back-stage space with dressing rooms, restrooms, offices, rehearsal rooms, a costume shop, classrooms and other support spaces. 
The Visual Arts Building is connected to the Performing Arts Center and contains photography darkrooms, electronic arts studio, midi studio, printmaking, painting, and drawing studios, computer and other electronic media facilities, classrooms and office space.  The 3-D Studio Shop Building is a separate building to the north of the Performing Arts Center and includes the ceramic studio, 3D studio, wood and theatre shop, metal working facilities and other shop and support spaces.

Owner
Simons Rock College of Bard

Architect
Ann Beha Architects
www.annbeha.com
Principal:                              
Ann M. Beha FAIA
Principal:                              
Robert Miklos FAIA
Project Manager:
Geoffrey Pingree AIA
Project Architect:
Zachary Hinchliffe AIA
Project Team:                      
Patrick Tam, Mark Oldham, Tom Kahmann AIA

Engineer(s)
MEP/Fire Protection:
TMP Consulting Engineering
Structural:
LeMessurier Consultants
Civil:
White Engineering Inc.

Consultant(s)
Landscape Architect:
Reed Hilderbrand Associates
Theater:
Fisher Dachs Associates
Acoustical:
Acentech

Contractor(s)
Mullaney Corporation

Photographer(s)
Peter Vanderwarker Photographer
www.vanderwarker.com

The Ohio State University Knowlton School of Architecture, Columbus, Ohio
Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects

Photography: © Timothy Hursley

The site of the new school of architecture is at the western edge of the old campus, close to the river and the football stadium, at the happily congested corner of West Woodruff Avenue and Tuttle Park Place. Bounded by raw concrete parking garages to the south and the staid red brick of the business school to the north, laboratory buildings to the east and the emptiness of the stadium parking lot to the west, edged and crossed by major campus pedestrian thoroughfares, the site is a dynamic zone, capable of sustaining a connective architecture and landscape and an inclusive urban form.
Asserting the belief that a school of architecture has a commitment to teach by example to both
students within and the community at large, the architectural form and urban positioning of the new school is strategically active and interactive. The facades of the adjacent buildings are the spatial boundaries of the site of the school. The building form is generated by enclosing, defining, and confronting the spaces and existing buildings of this larger site. A sculpted green space between the school and the business school campus to the north modulates both the mess and vitality of the roadway and pedestrian activity. Studios overlook the newly captured spaces. Students are in the midst of the urban activity which they will study and will eventually help form and influence.
At the main entrance, the vertical circulation path begins. An inclined plane system moves up and through the building, passing studios and review spaces along the way. Faculty offices are placed along circulation patterns, visually accessible from the studios and intimately linked with the daily work of the students. The final event along the vertical path through the school is the library, a 30,000 volume collection with reading room and reference areas. The roof garden of the library extends out and over the forecourt below, bringing the inclined plane to its conclusion above its starting point. At night the glass clad library is a lantern signaling the glorious history of architecture and the discipline of architecture as an intellectual pursuit. In addition to the forty-five studios, sixty-five offices, an auditorium and library, program areas of the school include a woodshop, café, digital imaging facilities, computer laboratories, classrooms, an archive, and an exhibition gallery.

Owner                                   
The Ohio State University

Architect
Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects
www.msmearch.com
Project Team:                   
Mack Scogin with Merrill Elam
David Yocum, Brian Bell, John Trefry, Penn Ruderman, Barnum Tiller, Cecila Tham, Jeffrey Collins, Kevin Gotsch, Margaret Fletcher

Architect of Record
WSA Studio
www.wsastudio.com

Engineer(s)
Structural:                             
Lantz, Jones & Nebraska, Inc.
MEP:                      
H.A.W.A. Consulting Engineers
Civil:                      
Bird & Bull, Inc.

Consultant(s)
Landscape Architect:         
Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

Contractor(s)
General Contractor:           
P.J. Dick, Inc.

Photographer(s) 
© Timothy Hursley, The Arkansas Office

Fashion Institute of Technology Competition, New York, NY
Joel Sanders Architect

Drawings: © Joel Sanders Architect

Textiles, materials woven or knitted from fibers, are cross-disciplinary, a common material that links the diverse disciplines and departments that make up FIT. Not only does our competition design employ a wide variety of fabrics, both hard and soft, but also our building behaves like a well-dressed body, clad in an ensemble of coordinated fabrics that knit together a series of inter-connected academic and student programs tailor-made to fit the FIT community.
Beginning at the entrance, a golden thread defines a continuous circulation path that knits together all of the building’s spaces from the soaring street level gateway to the administrative roof terrace, activated along its length by variety of multipurpose student activity zones.
Designed in collaboration with landscape architect Balmori Associates and environmental engineer Atelier 10, the project is fully sustainable, featuring natural ventilation, day-lighting, and green roofs—all aimed at improving quality of life while increasing energy.
Updating the original C-building façade whose design resembles a pleated textile, our translucent woven glass façade is, like the original C-building skin, fabricated from a pattern: a modular element repeats and is mirrored to create the effect of a continuous woven surface. The woven façade functions as an info-text-tile. Using already available commercial signage technologies on alternate classroom floors, a digital display (LED) threads it way horizontally through the vertical glass weave, transmitting images and messages to viewers both inside and outside the building.

Owner   
Fashion Institute of Technology

Architect
Joel Sanders Architect
www.joelsandersarchitect.com
Principal:
Joel Sanders
Project Architect:
Brian Kimura
Project Team:
Edowa Shimizu, Damen Hamilton, Ariane Sphikas, Daniel Lopez, Cedric Cornu

Architect
RKTB
www.rktb.com
               
Engineer(s)
Energy:
Atelier 10
Structural:
Robert Silman Associates,P.C.
 
Consultant(s)
Landscape:
Balmori Associates
Curtain Wall:
C-Tek/Michael Skura

University of California San Diego Calit2, La Jolla, CA
NBBJ

Photography: © John Durant Drawings: © NBBJ

Following the launch of a state initiative to keep California at the forefront of technological innovation, the University of California envisioned a network of four institutes that would use collaboration to address large-scale societal issues.  Calit2, the second of them, was established at UC San Diego, one of the nation’s highest-ranked research institutions.
Every aspect of its design is inspired by the vision of interconnected, ubiquitous broadband wireless communication, and the mission to develop new strategic applications through public-private partnerships. Providing some of the most advanced facilities in the nation, the building includes clean rooms, micro-electro-mechanical labs, immersive virtual reality, and ultra-high-definition digital cinema.
The dynamic balance of the building’s form expresses the coexistence of related but opposing forces. The rectangular form on the courtyard side houses the building support systems and lab functions while the curvilinear form on the canyon side provides open-plan collaboration spaces. Inside the building, faculty offices form the perimeter of the upper levels and define the open areas of the research cluster.
The building’s infrastructure is designed to accommodate nearly two million feet of Ethernet cable and 150 optical-fiber links with UCSD campus networks. Ethernet trays are exposed for ease of access and to communicate a strong message about the purpose of the facility. Its interiors provide long-term adaptability, nurturing collaboration at many levels with spaces for both one-on-one meetings (laboratories and offices) and larger-scale interactions (visualization rooms and the black-box theater).
The materials also support Calit2’s mission. The design team discovered ordinary metal and even glass were too “opaque” to wireless signals, so initiated an intense study into the building’s structure, which led to the use of an innovative composite material called Trespa for the exterior. The innovative composite façade minimizes blocking electromagnetic waves, and a steel structural system makes it easier to map interference points.
Technology, embraced as a unifying element, informs the building’s character, shaping work spaces around the performance of the systems and the researchers who bring it to life.  As the future of wireless and communications technology continues to transform the world around us, Calit2 and its research will continue to evolve and meet new needs.

Owner
UCSD

Architect
NBBJ
www.nbbj.com
Project Architect:
Fred Powell
Principal in charge:
Richard Clarke
Senior Designer:
Gabrielle Blackman
Designer:
Victor Vizagatis
Interior Designer:
Clarinda Bisceglia

Engineer(s)
Civil & Land Surveying:
Psomas
MEP:
Flack + Kurtz
Structural:
Rutherford & Chekene

Consultant(s)
Acoustical:
Charles M. Salter Associates
Landscape:
Spurlock Poirier Landscape Architects
Lighting:
HLB  Lighting
A/V and Acoustics:
The Sextant Group, Inc.
Code / Hazardous Material:
Eriksen Rattan Associates, Inc.
Graphics:
Debra Nichols Design
Cost Estimating:
Davis Langdon Adamson
Vibration:
Colin Gordon & Associates
Laboratory Planning / Design:
Research Facilities Design

Contractor(s)
Gilbane Contractors

Photographer(s)
John Durant Photographer
www.johndurant.com

Sarah Lawrence College Monica A. and Charles A. Heimbold Jr. Visual Arts Center, Bronxville, NY.
Polshek Partnership Architects

Photography: © Richard Barnes Drawings: © Polshek Partnership Architects

The new Heimbold Center establishes a dynamic interdisciplinary environment for the visual arts at Sarah Lawrence College, a progressive liberal arts institution, whose bucolic campus is located about 15 miles north of Manhattan.
From the outset, the College's identified goals for the building informed our conceptual strategy environmentally, spatially, systemically and materially. The visual arts have historically occupied an important place in the College's progressive liberal arts curriculum. However, over time the various disciplines in the program were dispersed across the campus in inadequate spaces. The College's dual objectives of strengthening the arts curriculum and forging a new interdisciplinary direction in the arts could be achieved only through the creation of a unified environment that would inspire creativity, foster an intensive dialogue between students and faculty, and break down barriers between disciplines.  The College also sought a leadership role in sustainable design.
The Heimbold Center occupies a prominent site adjacent to the President's house, a two-story, fieldstone structure built in 1921. The building is integrated into the topography of the existing hilltop: on the south a stepped grass-covered rooftop reduces the overall impact of the building on the natural environment. The resulting landscaped space is a new outdoor public focal point for the campus.
To promote engagement with the building, and afford all students visual access to the creative process, the design incorporates pre-existing patterns of pedestrian movement between classroom facilities on the historic campus and dormitories to its west. Moreover, as the building emerges from the ground plane and its stone base, glass is employed as the primary material, affording visual transparency and maximizing daylighting within. Physical permeability is achieved by means of glass garage doors, which open to the landscaped terrace from studios, critique spaces and a café.
On the interior, teaching and exhibit spaces are integrated into the network of circulation and movement. While the studio spaces for painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, photography, film/new media, visual fundamentals, art history, and visual culture are specific to each discipline, production spaces are accessible to all students, and general critique spaces, seminar rooms and technology clusters are interspersed throughout the building. The integration of advanced technologies serves as an essential link between students, faculty and the arts community at the College and fosters an interdisciplinary process.
From the start, fundamental principles of sustainable design relating to siting, solar orientation, material selection, daylighting and mechanical systems informed the design process and were integrated into the overall conceptual design. Exemplary are a geothermal heat pump system, a recycled glazing system, which defines the painting studios' northern exposure and a central sky-lit gallery, which forms a two-story lightfilled focal point for the building and unifies activities. Inspiration for the building's primary materials - fieldstone, cedar, channel glass and zinc - was found in the campus's rich landscape and its historic architecture.  The use of stone from local quarries continues the College's history of utilizing local fieldstone in the construction of its buildings, and contributed to LEED certification.

Owner                   
Sarah Lawrence College

Architect
Polshek Partnership Architects
www.polshek.com
Design Partner:
Susan Rodriguez FAIA
Management Partner:
Timothy Hartung FAIA
Project Manager:
Joanne Sliker AIA
Construction Manager:
John Lowery AIA

Engineer(s)                                  
Structural:
Severud Associates
MEP:
Altieri Sebor Wieber
Geotechnical / Civil:
Langan Engineering

Consultant(s)
Landscape:
Quennell Rothschild & Partners
Lighting:
Brandston Partnership
Graphics:
Poulin + Morris
Acoustics, AV, Theater:
Harvey Marshall Berling Associates
Sustainable Design:
Steven Winter Associates

Contractor(s)
F.J. Sciame

Photographer(s):
Richard Barnes Photography
© Richard Barnes

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