The site for this project is a former parking lot located at the center of a small campus between the Library and Student Center. Both these adjoining buildings are very large -- each more than ten times the size of the new structure. All three buildings connect to a major new walk linking this area of the campus with the academic quadrangle. The view west across this walk is to the central campus green and lake beyond.
by Barry Halkin, Kieran, Timberlake & Harris
The site for this project is a former parking lot located at the center of a small campus between the Library and Student Center. Both these adjoining buildings are very large -- each more than ten times the size of the new structure. All three buildings connect to a major new walk linking this area of the campus with the academic quadrangle. The view west across this walk is to the central campus green and lake beyond.
The new structure adopts a "wall" strategy to reinforce the campus walk and establish a scale compatible with the much larger adjoining buildings. The brick garden wall is articulated with deeply recessed openings and concealed frames to reinforce its masonry reading. The stucco second floor and portions of the first floor on the east side emerge behind and above this wall, substantiating the dialogue between site strategy (single-story brick garden wall) and program accommodation (stucco enclosed volumes). At the north end, the inside-outside connections between these two systems converge where the double volume internal "welcoming room" has an implied external extension conveyed by the duality of the large bifurcated opening to the campus green -- half-glazed and interior, half open frame and exterior. The program contains a block of administrative office space to the south on both floors. As this block emerges against the double-volume main stair and welcoming room, it overlaps the open volume; the second floor conference and dean's rooms extend into the double-volume, forming a singleheight reception area below and allowing views across the welcoming room and out to the campus. The spatial sequence from enclosed office block to double-volume welcoming room is culminated with the garden as implied room, completing the spatial transposition from solid (office program) to void (garden as extension of welcoming room), all behind the unifying site presence of the brick garden wall.
© 1997– KieranTimberlake Associates LLP
[ 420 N 20 Street, Philadelphia PA 19130.3828 | V 215 922 6600 F 215 922 4680 ]
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