Quality of life is an aspect of the collegiate experience now subject to critical analysis. It means much more than it used to since the generation between baby booms forms an expanding lacuna where a surfeit of bodies once was. The ivory towers find themselves in an unusual position: they must compete on every front to attract students. The smaller groves of academe, particularly the single-sex ones with religious affiliations, have discovered that social atmosphere is one of the liberal arts.
by Judith Nasatir
Quality of life is an aspect of the collegiate experience now subject to critical analysis. It means much more than it used to since the generation between baby booms forms an expanding lacuna where a surfeit of bodies once was. The ivory towers find themselves in an unusual position: they must compete on every front to attract students. The smaller groves of academe, particularly the single-sex ones with religious affiliations, have discovered that social atmosphere is one of the liberal arts.
Chestnut Hill College, a Catholic women's school occupying several Romanesque revival structures on the outskirts of Philadelphia, took a clearly pragmatic yet not unscholarly approach to a flaw in the argument posed by the campus' quality of life. The nuns hired the Philadelphia firm of Kieran, Timberlake & Harris to update its Student Activity Center, a central meeting spot in a building basement. The design team -including Stephen Kieran, James Timberlake, Samuel Harris, Ann Leopold Witkes, Chris Macneal and David Thurman -set to work on a volume defined by a grid of structural columns, exposed pipes, conduits and concrete ribs.
The client presented a rather broad core curriculum for the revised, 3,415-sq.-ft. interior to circumscribe. Mandated were bank machines, a mailroom with boxes, video games, a quiet lounge, a TV lounge with seating in tiered levels, two new bathrooms (one for men), a new kitchen, and a cafe, all to serve approximately 250 people. Other stipulations included that activities related to eating, studying and procrastinating (sorry, talking and television) also be provided for, especially parties and dances. In order to fulfill the requirements, explained James Timberlake, the various areas were placed somewhat unconventionally in the subdivisions marked by the existing grid.
The entry progresses through an arcade, punctuated by alcoves that contain the student mailboxes, bank machine and video and pinball games. Perforated steel plate barriers separate each activity, allude to the grid, and form a visual whole out of the disparate units. Uplights in the tops of the frames that fix the steel screens illuminate the ceiling coffers.
The cafe provides the destination at the end of the arcade. Booths line the perimeter walls, circumnavigating the outside edges of the dance floor. Brightly colored tables and chairs define an inner circle or square, as the case may be, marked by the junction between carpeted border and wood dance floor. To the west of the central space, a lunch bar sits behind another screen of perforated steel plate. To the south are the two lounges.
But most of all there is the ceiling, for which the existing grid serves as an objective correlative. Timberlake calls the ceiling "topographic, a contrapuntal structure." Basically a pattern of grids superimposed on various planes, and twisting in space, the ceiling has differing depths registered by coffers; a grid of stalactite-like wood posts hanging from connectors; a curved beam or tilted arc that swoops out over the dance floor; and a lower hung ceiling plane that hovers on the outside of the spatial envelope as a solid surface over the booths. Pipework remains exposed for a number of reasons, and ultimately becomes, with the pipe hangers, one of the sculptural elements of the ceiling. A track lighting system, on dimmers, also participates in achieving special effects.
The Student Activity Center at Chestnut Hill College demonstrates the liberality inherent in a catholic embrace of all venues for education not strictly academic.
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Credits and Captions from Original Article
Floor tile: Holhauer Tile Co.; Carpet: Patterson, Flynn & Martin; Wood dance floor: Traditional Floor Co.; Paint: Benjamin Moore; Ceiling lighting: Keystone; Prescolite; Neoray; Capri; Lighting controls: Prescolite; Seating: Gordon International; Images of America; Brickel; Wetherend Estate Furniture; Tables: Beylerian Collection through Vecta; Redco; Geyer Industries; Punched steel screens: P & S Iron; Manufacturer of wood pieces for ceiling: Geyer Industries; General contractor: McCullough-Howard Co.; Photo Legends: Above: A view of the dance floor in the cafe. The structural beams form the primary elements of a grid that is explored in different ways in the design of the ceiling, as well as other areas of the interior; Right: A detail shot of the sculptured ceiling treatment. The track lighting runs along the vectors of the grid; they can be dimmed when the cafe is used for dances; Above, left: A view through the more formal lounge into the active central space shows the different types of areas that make up the entirety of the Student Activity Center; Above: Reflected ceiling plan shows Kieran, Timberlake & Harris' manipulation of the grid as a design device; Left: An overall view of the cafe interior shows the varying depths of the ceiling as well as its tilts, curves and angles; Right: A view through the progression of the arcade ending in the cafe establishes the formal and structural elements used throughout the interior spaces. Uplights on top of the frames illuminate the ceiling coffers; Below: The perforated steel plate screens divide the lunch bar from the main cafeteria space; misc credits, callouts, etc.; Photography: Tom Bernard; "... Most of all there is the ceiling, for which the existing grid serves as an objective correlative... "
© 1997– KieranTimberlake Associates LLP
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