2008 Notable Projects: Dormitories
Vol.03 No.03

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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.

University of Cincinnati Campus Recreation Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
Morphosis | KZF Design

Photography: ©Nic Lehoux Photography Photography: ©Roland Halbe Photography Photography: ©Ted Kane Drawings: ©Morphosis

Weaving as a means of establishing flow to resolve the site’s disparate staccato of existing buildings and edges informs the principal strategy for the University of Cincinnati master plan. We were interested in developing a series of connective events to engage peripheral flows on the campus in order to generate or augment an urban density and to encourage, rather than dampen, the polyvalent nature of social experience on campus.
Forms reflect found conditions and contribute to a strategy for cohesively incorporating numerous existing structures with the additional 350,000 square feet of recreational facilities, classrooms, housing, campus store, dining hall, and varsity aquatic center, that are included in this new facility. Conceiving the main circulation corridor as a series of weaving strands, we placed “Main Street,” the primary campus thoroughfare, in such a way as to concentrate and direct the movement of students.
The contoured element of the new housing building funnels students onto the campus green, feeding the forcefield of movement through a “pinch point.” Secondary pedestrian paths penetrate, intertwine, and wrap buildings, further relaxing a reading of discrete objects on a homogenous field, and substituting a thick mat of cohesive trajectories in its place.
Augmented ground has been an evolving interest in our studio; here a thickened ground mat becomes a means of adding program to site. The new recreational facilities are tucked beneath a curvilinear plane of landscape -- a field of undulating mats, punctured with light openings. The housing bar, lifted on pilotis, overlooks this “roofscape,” which smoothes the transition between the sunken football field and the higher grade of north campus. The scheme resolves many of the site’s awkward idiosyncrasies, and the new cohesive texture embraces the complexities of campus life.

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State Street Village, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois
Murphy/Jahn, Inc.

Photography: ©Doug Snower Photography Drawings: ©Murphy/Jahn, Inc.

Through an invited competition we won the commission for the IIT-Student Housing.
The site, across the college’s Main Quadrangle and Mies’ Crown-Hall, has to respond both to the Quadrangle as a space defining wall, as well be pervious, allowing east-west movement through the campus, which is divided through the north-south barriers of State Street and the elevated train.
Between three U-shaped buildings forming entry-courts are two ‘sally-ports’. Facing the railway line glass screens protect against the noise of the trains. The curved west-façade of profiled stainless steel panels merges at the set-back-floor into the roof and reinforces the idea of an extrusion.
At the courts and sally-ports the wall projects and the panels are perforated and form screened gates.
The low budget did not allow planning for long-term energy/comfort measures in the MEP-system. However, the comfort of the user has been improved by simple means, like coated, low-E glass, maximizing daylight, natural ventilation and a specially designed furniture system allowing the students maximum flexibility in placement and use.
The earlier unbuilt project for the Campus Center occupied partially the same site. Its program and use led to a building of components, which are flexible, adaptable and exchangeable over the buildings’ life. The housing project did not require such a strategy, but resulted in a clear response to the urban condition with a bold curved form and industrial materials facing the rigor of the Mies-Campus.

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Owner
IIT Housing Corporation

Architect(s)
Murphy/Jahn, Inc.
www.murphyjahn.com  
Project team:
Helmut Jahn
John Durbrow
Peter Hayes
Chad Mitchell
Dan Cubric
Francisco Gonzalez-Pulido
Naotami Yasuda
Salim Bou-Saab
John Manaves

Engineers and Consultants
Interior Designer/Furniture Design:
Murphy/Jahn, Inc.
Structural:
Werner Sobek Ingenieure GmbH
Mechanical Concept:
Transsolar Energietechnik GmbH
MEP Engineer:
Hill Mechanical Contractor
Landscape:
Peter Lindsay Schaudt Landscape Architecture, Inc.
Civil Engineer:
TERRA Engineering Ltd.

Contractor(s)
W.E. O’Neil

Photographer(s)
©Doug Snower Photography
www.kplusr.com/Doug.html

115 studios for Cirque du Soleil, Montréal, Québec
Les architectes FABG

Photography: ©Steve Montpetit photo d’architecture Drawings: ©Les architectes FABG

La Cité des arts du cirque (Tohu), is a non-profit organization founded by En Piste (the national association of circus arts professionals, companies and institutions), the National Circus School (École nationale de cirque) and Cirque du Soleil. It has a threefold mission:
A cultural mission: To secure Montreal's place as an international circus arts capital.   
An environmental mission: To actively participate in the revitalization of the  second largest urban landfill site in North America.
A community mission: To be a place where culture, environmental consciousness and the community become closely intertwined and constantly influence each other.
It chose to put down roots on the borders of the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex (CESM), a vast 192-hectare limestone quarry gradually turned into a landfill site. By the end of the 1980s, the site received nearly a million tons of waste every year! The site eventually became the focus of the most extensive environmental rehabilitation project ever undertaken by the City. The development plan calls for the site to be transformed into an urban and ever-changing park with educational, cultural, sports and commercial-industrial sectors.
115 studios - CDS is a housing project for the Cirque du Soleil needs that could also be used to lodge young athletes and artists taking part in amateur festivals and competitions. These  young athletes and artists from all around the world converge to the Cirque du Soleil headquarters in Montréal for a short period of training before touring with the productions of the company.
This project contains 115 studios for  them  including some that can be combined to become suites. They are complemented by living rooms, balconies, a fitness room, a game room and an internet café. The architectural proposal is composed of a cube of rooms over a plinth of services on 2nd avenue in front of the Cirque’s headquarters and of a lower bar which is in the continuity of the houses on Jean-Rivard street. The expression of stacked containers which are crossed over each others reflects the transient nature of the building’s nomadic occupants as well as the tension that exists between the individual and the collective in the company. The project explores the notion of dynamic equilibrium in the same way that jugglers, contortionnists, and trapezists play with the weight of things to defy gravity. The atrium enhances the awareness of each other and negates the fears associated with gravity. The rotation of the floor plans one over the other is revealed by the displacement of the doors contributing to the dynamism of the space.

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Owner
Cirque du Soleil

Architect(s)
Les architectes FABG
www.arch-fabg.com  
Project Team:
Éric Gauthier    
André Lavoie   
Dominique Potvin 
Francois Verville 

Engineer(s)
Structural:
Renaud Lapointe ing.
Mechanical and Electrical:
Progemes        

Contractor(s)
Vergo Construction

Photographer(s)
©Steve Montpetit photo d’architecture
www.stevemontpetit.com

One Western Avenue, Harvard University Graduate Student Housing, Allston, Massachusetts
Machado and Silvetti Associates

Photography: ©Michael Moran Photography Drawings: ©Machado and Silvetti Associates

One Western Avenue occupies a prominent site at the southeast corner of the Harvard Business School, adjacent to the Charles River, where Western Avenue crosses Soldiers Field Road. The site marks arrival to Harvard’s campus from downtown Boston and areas south. The building’s configuration and image are based on interpretations of its physical context—the early-twentieth-century, five-story, brick-clad, U-shaped neo-Georgian courtyard houses and the mid-twentieth-century, twenty-story, concrete paneled modern towers. While One Western Avenue combines these two emblematic types, it adds something else, a three-story bridge raised four levels above the ground and spanning 180 feet. This volume divides the main central void into two contrasting spaces, a courtyard (with framed views to the river) and a front lawn. It creates a large covered terrace, furnished with a wooden platform intended for everyday use as well as special occasions.
This configuration produces desirable conditions that normally exclude one another: a courtyard open to the river and three stories of apartments occupying the same riverfront situation. The low-rise is wrapped in two brick patterns, one for the exterior walls and the other for the interior walls. These overlap in the entry passageway, producing a third pattern. The mid-rise and the bridge are clad in cast stone blocks, but used differently from one another. The surface treatment of all of the volumes is designed to allow the ideal prismatic geometry of the various building masses to register on the façade planes. One of the first buildings designed to fulfill a new sustainability initiative at Harvard, known as “The Greening of the Crimson,” the project has recently received a silver LEED rating.

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Owner
Harvard University

Architect(s)
Machado and Silvetti Associates
www.machado-silvetti.com    
Principal: Rodolfo Machado
Consulting Principal: Jorge Silvetti
Project Director: Peter Lofgren
Project Mngr: Michael G. Yusem
Project Architects: David Martin, Alan Lewis
Senior Designers: Aaron Follett, Modesto Bigas-Valedon, Edwin Goodell, Stephanie Randazzo Dwyer, Gregory G. Canaras, Heidi Beebe
Project Team: Stephen Atkinson, Diego Barbarena, Bobby Cheng, Josh Comaroff, Scott Cyphers, Christian Dagg, Juan Frigerio, Jonathan Hoover, Tara Leibenhaut, Sebastian Martellotto, Max Moore, Nick Papaefthimiou, Michael Piper, Gary Rohrbacher, Hubert Steinsailer, Theodore Touloukian, Rodrigo Vidal, Soo Jin Yoo.

Engineers and Consultants
Construction Mngr: Bond Brothers
Landscape: Richard Burck
Structural: Weidlinger Associates
Mechanical: Cosentini Associates
Civil: Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc.
Geotech/Environ.: Haley & Aldrich
Lighting: Lam Partners, Inc.
Elevatort: Syska & Hennessy
Waterproofing: Gale Associates, Inc.
Acoustics: Acentech Incorporated
Code: Schirmer Engineering Corp.
Specifications: Collective Wisdom
Cost: Daedalus, Hanscomb Ltd.

Photographer(s)
©Michael Moran Photography, Inc.
www.moranstudio.com

Pond Road Student Residence, York University , Toronto, Ontario
architects Alliance

Photography: ©Tom Arban Photography Drawings: ©architects Alliance

Located on the Keele Street campus of York University, this 440-bed residence is the first green student residence in Ontario. Stretching the length of Pond Road is an L-shaped patterned glass and concrete podium which hovers over a transparent ground floor. A nine-storey tower at the east end of the site, completes a U-shaped plan and creates an 8,000 sf courtyard.
The Pond Road Student Residence uses the same energy as conventional residences half its size. Sustainable design initiatives include in-slab heating and cooling that use the buildings concrete structure as a heat sink, a high performance curtain wall with sunshade devices, heat recovery on all exhausts and a planted roof.
The scope of this project also included the design of the courtyard and the streetscapes of Pond and Atkinson Roads. The courtyard is the major piece in the landscape of the residence. It is a modern derivative of the traditional college courtyard/quadrangle, taking its cues from both the architecture of the residence and the Colleges programme for the out-of-doors. The south edge of the courtyard carries out-of-doors the ground floor inside of the residence. The east and west edges of the courtyard are lined with Trembling Aspens. These provide both a visual and acoustic barrier between the courtyard and the residence rooms facing onto the courtyard.
Along the north edge of the courtyard is a pedestrian corridor separated from the courtyard by an alee of Japanese Lilac Trees. These, along with a continuous concrete bench/wall contain the south edge of the courtyard as well as provide shaded seating along the wall. The pristine grass square that is the centre of the courtyard is a gesture to the traditional college courtyard/quadrangle and forms the support for out-of-doors activities.

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Owner
York University

Architect(s)
architects Alliance
www.architectsalliance.com
Design Partner:
Pat Hanson (currently partner with gh3, formerly a partner at aA)
Managing Partner:
Adrian DiCastri
Partner in Charge of Site Review:
Ralph Bergman
Project Team:
Walter Bettio
Mara Nicolau

Engineer(s)
Mechanical and Electrical:
MCW Consultants Ltd.
Structural:
Halsall Engineers Consultants

Consultant(s)
Landscape:
Diana Gerard (currently partner with gh3)

Contractor(s)
Kenaiden Contracting Ltd.

Photographer(s)
©Tom Arban Photography
www.contextcreative.ca

Pierson and Davenport Colleges, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
KieranTimberlake Associates, LLP

Photography: ©Halkin Photography LLC Drawings: ©KieranTimberlake Associates

By rethinking program, building systems and materials, the renovation of Pierson and Davenport Colleges demonstrates the evolution in collegiate living in the past seventy-five years. In this 1930s residential complex, formal dining halls that once served a seated all-male population have been transformed into active self-service dining facilities; a basement that was once cluttered with pipes, storage, massive foundation walls and squash courts now encompasses a myriad of community spaces including a library, commons, workshops, café, laundry, basketball court, and theater, all linked by passages that are washed by sunlight from above.
Originally designed by James Gamble Rogers in 1930, the two buildings form the western edge of the undergraduate residential campus. With five floors and a basement organized around a series of courtyards, the colleges employ a Gothic vocabulary toward city streets, with an intimate Georgian vocabulary on the courtyard sides. The original program included basic student living and dining spaces, as well as residences for faculty. 
The new architectural interventions begin a dialogue with the past. The old is uncovered, framed and revealed by new materials and forms. Building systems, finishes and roofs were surgically removed, just as the existing structures were preserved and restored. Contemporary systems were strategically woven back, so that in their fine scale, they highlight the grandeur of the original construction and extend an architectural conversation across generations. This is most apparent in the basement, where long neglected back-of-house spaces are now reclaimed.
The weaving of new into old required creative structural solutions, including the conversion of narrow underground squash courts into a contemporary theater for seventy-two. A set of basement shear walls was removed to increase the footprint of the space, enabled by floor-to-ceiling trusses inserted above. Similarly, in order to provide light, circulation and visual framing of what is beyond, openings were carefully inserted throughout the foundation walls and mediated by new steel beams and columns.
The use of materials both distinguishes and relates the old and the new. Existing masonry was sandblasted to showcase the quality of prewar materials and construction, which were never intended to be seen, but in their newfound revelation pay tribute to the hand of the mason. For new interventions, self-finishing materials were selected to maintain a constant dialogue with the old, whether it is the end-grained wood block and colored concrete of floors, or the exposed steel of columns and beams.
The experience of the renovated Colleges is a reflective passage across time. In the course of daily life, a student passes through the stainless steel and glass servery into the original wood-paneled dining hall; holds a slender contemporary railing in a robust stairwell; or chooses whether to relax in the underground café or in the renovated historic common room above. With each passage, the student glances through precise openings in rugged stone walls to discover new passages and views. The unique program spaces of Pierson and Davenport Colleges further promote the constant crossover and interaction of the students, activating the two historic residential colleges with vibrant contemporary programs and details.

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Owner
Yale University

Architect(s)
KieranTimberlake Associates, LLP
www.kierantimberlake.com
Design Partners:
Stephen Kieran, James Timberlake
Associate in Charge:
Christopher MacNeal
Pierson College Project Team:
Project Manager: James Unkefer; Marceli Botticelli; Brian Carney; Kannikar Peterson; Karl Wallick; Andrew Evans; Castor Kong; Elisheva Levi; Rachel Mainwaring; Miharu Morimoto; Mark Rhoads; Kathy Speicher; Matthew Sauer; Adrienne Swiatocha; Kurtran Wright
Davenport College Project Team:
Project Architect: Richard Hodge; Mark Rhoads; Marilia Rodrigues; Marceli Botticelli; Erica Weiss; Brian Carney; Kannikar Petersen; Andrea Quilici; Yves Gauther; Monica Wyatt; Kathy Speicher; Matthew Sauer; Eric Delss; Kate Stevens; Andrew Evans; Steven Gastright; Scott Huebner; Katherine Geise

Engineers and Consultants
Structural: CVM Engineers
M/P/E/FP:BVH Integrated Services
Landscape: Towers | Golde
Civil: BVH Integrated Systems, Inc.
Soil: Haley & Aldrich, Inc.
Elevator: Van Deusen &Associates
Code: ConnCode Publications
Specifications: Wilson Consulting
Cost: International Consultants, Inc.
Food: Ricca Newmark Design
Lighting: Tigue Lighting, Inc.
Interiors: Marguerite Rodgers, Ltd.
Signage: Stong Cohen
Acoustics: Metropolitan Acoustics

Contractor(s)
Daniel O’Connell’s Sons, Inc.

Photographer(s)
© Halkin Photography LLC
www.barryhalkin.com

The Radian, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Erdy McHenry Architecture, LLC

Photography: ©Erdy McHenry Architecture Drawings: ©Erdy McHenry Architecture

The 3900 block of Walnut Street lies at the northwest edge of the University of Pennsylvania campus. The site is currently composed of buildings of varying characteristics: a low-slung suburban strip mall and McDonalds, 19th century row-houses with ornate brickwork, and an English Gothic church among others. Particular consideration is taken towards this existing context as well as continuing campus development projects along the 40th St. corridor, connecting campus edges to west Philadelphia. The project was challenged to both respond to and activate these contextual edges. Urban integration is important to position the project within the city while maintaining University connectivity. Retail and residential programs provide the opportunity to explore both these boundaries and scales of urban context simultaneously.
The project looks to take advantage of under-utilized existing urban context as event space. The project explores the living unit as a fixed module for design, but as a flexible system for understanding space. The private vs public space relationship develops from this concept and is revealed in the patterning of the facade.
This project aims to understand social relationships that exist within urban college campus typologies. Social scenarios are studied through unit type design and configuration. Relationships are developed that correspond to random adjacencies within the building fostering interactions between every resident. Particular living configurations were studied as modular groupings to realize a systematic approach to the design of building components. The variations represent a similar approach to the relationship of public and private spaces within apartment units. In addition, variable configurations lend themselves to unique conditions at each plan level altering the facade accordingly.
The scale of the project is further understood at the street level where a retail plinth extends from beneath the residential tower gesturing to the pedestrian. Building massing is pushed to the center of the block, reducing street level sight lines in favor of center city views.
Ground level retail pushes back from the street opening a public space for informal gathering. The dormitory entrance exists along this axis and public activity extends up and under the residential tower via a grand stair. This open court aligns with an adjacent quad on the south side of Walnut Street connecting to Locust Walk. Outdoor dining options are provided at the upper terrace level and allow for glimpses onto the street. A grove of trees is offered as mediation between the retail and residential components. Residential floors are cantilevered above the plaza and residents enter using a folding stair that extends vertically to the terrace level. Additional outdoor dining space is planned at this level to service small cafes and restaurant tenants. The urban lifestyle is highlighted and re-invented in this space.
Ground Level retail also extends continuously through the block and spills onto Sansom St; addressing both the larger-scale 40th Street retail corridor and the largely residential scale of Sansom Street. A second residential entry is positioned on the Sansom St. side of the site to bring students into and through the thickness of the building.

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Owner
Inland American Communities Group, Inc.

Architect(s)
Erdy McHenry Architecture, LLC
www.em-arc.com   
Firm Principals:
Scott Erdy, AIA
David McHenry, AIA      
Project Team:
Chris Boskey                            
Mark Ericson                            
Ryan Hill                                  
Michael Brahler, RA                  
AJ Reilly                      

Engineer(s)
Structural:
The Harman Group
Civil:
Pennoni Associates, Inc.
MEP:
Paul H. Yeomans, Inc.

Consultant(s)
Landscape:
Pennoni Associates, Inc.
Green Roof Consultant: 
Roofscapes
www.roofscapes.com
Exterior Wall Consultant: 
Edwards & Company

Contractor(s)
INTECH Construction, Inc.

Photographer(s)
Photos by architect
©Erdy McHenry Architecture, LLC

Medaille College Student Housing & Commons, Buffalo, New York
Yazdani Studio of Cannon Design

Drawings: ©Yazdani Studio of Cannon Design

Medaille College is a dynamic college committed to providing a diverse, thriving experience for its students. To achieve their goals, the Yazdani Studio of Cannon Design conceived this building as a linear pavilion that would be used as the new ‘front door’ of the Medaille campus. From a user’s standpoint the base is a transparent glass box, allowing views into and through the building, thus prompting interaction and observation.
Volumes of program, breaking down the interior volume of space in plan and section, find themselves between the existing ground plane and the ‘green’ roof plane of the building. Perforations and folds in the roof allow sunlight into the levels below and help connect the spaces below with any activities that might happen above. The 120,000 sf building contains a 1,400 seat basketball arena, a library, information commons with computer areas, a dining hall, and a student housing ‘pod’ containing 100 beds with lounges and Resident Advisor apartments every other floor. Room views and exposure are maximized due to the shaping of the building, while the exterior façade is comprised of colored panels, mimicking the colors of nearby Delaware Park, a National Historic Register District designed by Frederick Law Olmstead.
The building fuses together interrelated programs, which originally were in disparate locations on the campus. By combining all programs and activities of student life — sleeping, dining, socializing, playing, studying, and working — the building becomes the hub for interaction and community, creating a focal point that will become the catalyst for further development on the campus.

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Owner
Medaille College

Architect(s)
Yazdani Studio of Cannon Design
www.yazdanistudio.com
Design Principal:
Mehrdad Yazdani
Project Principal:
Michael Mistriner
Project Manager:
Frank Sica
Designers:
Jeremy Whitener
Yan Krimsky
Project Architect:
James Rayberg
Education Planner:
Kelly Hayes McAlomie

Engineer(s)
Structural:
Cannon Design, John Boekleman
Mechanical:
Cannon Design, Don Warner
Electrical:
Cannon Design, Peter McClive

Consultant(s)
Cost Estimator:
Cannon Design, Joseph Cohen
Civil:
Watts Engineers
Landscape:
Joy Kuebler Landscape Architect

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