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SOM's new Schwarzman College of Computing opens at MIT

2024-05-01T14:02:00-04:00

The new home for the recently established MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been completed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

What will be a research hub for AI and other disciplines in the computing sciences offers 185,000 square feet of labs, collaborative spaces, classrooms, and faculty areas inside a shingled profile that defines two eight-story pavilions.

Image credit: Dave Burk © SOM

The structure's design was limited by an existing railroad track running along the site’s north axis, creating the need for a 44-foot bridge that connects to either volume across three levels. After entering its oak-finished triple-height lobby from a central plaza area, engineers and researchers have space to explore flexible arrangements in the offices along its perimeter on Vassar Street.

Image credit: Dave Burk © SOM

The building includes social kitchens, a large 250-seat lecture ...

BIG teams up with University of Kansas students and faculty to deliver the new Makers’ KUbe design

2024-04-22T15:24:00-04:00

BIG in partnership with BNIM and the University of Kansas have unveiled plans for a new six-story creative academic space that will help consolidate formerly separate learning environments for students in the School of Architecture & Design. Comprising a diagrid frame, the Makers’ KUbe is a 50,000-square-foot mass timber cube structure connecting the school’s renovated Marvin Hall and Chalmers Hall buildings from 1908 and 1978, respectively.

Mahbub Rashid, the new Dean of the University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design, said: "BIG’s willingness to both listen to us and push us has conceived a project that celebrates our history and embodies the ambitious optimism that animates our academic mission."

Image by Kilograph

As Rashid mentioned, the design is the product of a collaborative effort that brought together students, faculty, and board members in order to create a hub-like embodiment of KU’s four primary principles: "to become an emblem of creativity; to create a connec...

KPF designs Columbia University's first purpose-built, all-electric research lab building

2024-04-10T18:28:00-04:00

Kohn Pedersen Fox has designed a new state-of-the-art research and academic facility that will deliver Columbia Universty’s first purpose-built, all-electric lab building for the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The project will augment Columbia’s Plan 2030 for achieving campus-wide net-zero emissions by 2050. It boasts a system of air source heat pumps (ASHPs) that manage the building’s temperature controls in unison with a high-performance facade that offers an optimized window-to-wall-ratio under 50%.

Credit: RGB, courtesy Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF)

“As an all-electric research lab building in a cold climate, the biomedical research building presented a particular challenge given high heating loads brought on by the ventilation requirements of the building’s program,” KPF’s Director and Head of Sustainability, Carlos Cerezo Davila, said in a project announcement. “This required us to design a building where the architecture and the mechanical systems work toge...

KPF presents Detroit's new University of Michigan Center for Innovation design

2024-04-05T15:15:00-04:00

A new project in Detroit from Kohn Pedersen Fox will deliver the University of Michigan's Center for Innovation (UMCI), a six-story academic research and teaching facility that is expected to open by the spring of 2027.

Construction has already commenced for the $250 million development, which will be delivered at 200,000 square feet in advance of two other “incubator” and residential structures that will follow at a later date on the four-acre site. The university says the UMCI will serve a host of purposes and is primarily intended for workforce development and different graduate degree programs.

Atrium view. Image credit: Kohn Pedersen Fox

KPF Design Principal Hana Kassem describes: “The UMCI is a catalyst for positive change and, as such, presents itself along Grand River Avenue as a ‘gateway for innovation. It proudly bears the University of Michigan spirit focusing on progress and inclusivity which is embodied in its dynamic forward-leaning form and the portal that cuts through...

Heatherwick Studio previews first South American project in Bogotá, Colombia

2024-03-21T16:45:00-04:00

Heatherwick Studio has made public details of a new project in Bogotá, Colombia, for a client in the higher education industry. The studio’s first South American design will be realized as a seven-story academic building and makerspace with a uniquely colorful facade composed of setbacks, free columns, planting, and small circular outdoor terraces.

The client is Bogotá’s Universidad Ean Design School, a 56-year-old private institution founded to provide "comprehensive training of people and stimulate their entrepreneurial aptitude so that its action contributes to the economic and social development of people."

Image: Heatherwick Studio/NOD

Traditional Werregue basket-making practices serve as the inspirations for the design, tipping off Heatherwick’s war on blandness and desire to elevate craft into a primary role in his building practice.

This homage to Colombia's Wounaan Indigenous community will serve as the new centerpiece of the campus, complementing the architecture of the su...

Harvard GSD details Gund Hall renovations

2023-12-21T12:06:00-05:00

Harvard’s Graduate School of Design has unveiled plans for a slate of renovations that will culminate next year and are aimed at improving the user experience for students and faculty at 51-year-old Gund Hall in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The project will help preserve the familiar John Andrews design for new generations while serving as a model for the sustainable redevelopment of midcentury structures, the school announced. Boston-based Bruner/Cott Architects will be leading the process, leaning on its past renovation and remodeling of the Harvard Holyoke Center with Hopkins Architects that was completed in 2019.

The first phase of construction will insulate the building envelope in order to reduce energy costs and increase occupational comfort. Gund Hall’s iconic ‘trays,’ the terraced glass structures covering studio spaces will be reglazed. The GSD is testing out prototypes in Gund Hall’s 'The Pit' multiuse area and says they are especially hopeful for a hybrid vacuum-insulated ...

Moody Nolan reveals design for $342 million research complex at Morgan State University

2023-11-17T13:11:00-05:00

Moody Nolan has shared an update to its previously announced Science and Research Complex project at Morgan State University in Baltimore.

The new, 246,000-square-foot complex comes equipped with the industry’s latest technological features and will be designed to achieve R1 (very high research activity) Carnegie classification, aiming to bolster the school’s STEM education offerings and national position as a research university.

New renderings released by the firm showcase the direction of the project, whose programmatic elements include Collaborative Teaching and Research Spaces, Information Technology and Computer Labs, Tutoring and Learning Centers, a 3,000-square-foot Environmental and Botanical Rooftop Greenhouse, and space for Remote and Hybrid Technology Integration.

Image courtesy of Moody Nolan

The building will house MSU’s School of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (SCMNS) and be constructed alongside pre-set minority business enterprise (MBE) goals of 47.75%...

Pittsburgh's Institute for Contemporary Art reveals ZGF-designed expansion at Carnegie Mellon University

2023-11-13T14:13:00-05:00

ZGF Architects has announced plans for an expansion of the Miller Institute for Contemporary Art at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

As part of the design, the soon-to-be-renamed Institute for Contemporary Art Pittsburgh will increase in size by three times its current operating capacity. Located near other important cultural institutions inside of the new Richard King Mellon Hall of Sciences at the edge of Carnegie Mellon’s campus on Forbes Avenue, the 29,000-square-foot space serves as an interdisciplinary “advocate for new ideas and an aggregator of communities” in dialogue with the neighboring Carnegie Museum of Art and a growing audience of scholars, students, and faculty.

Image: Atchain, courtesy Carnegie Mellon University

The program calls for a 338,000-square-foot complex of buildings to be divided into two components: a looping wing that contains the ICA and other university spaces, and a set-back tower that will be the new home of the CMU Mellon College of Science ...

EskewDumezRipple to deliver academic center for Georgia Tech in Atlanta

2023-10-30T14:29:00-04:00

EskewDumezRipple has announced plans for a new academic building for the Georgia Institute of Technology in midtown Atlanta.

The 416,500-square-foot Tech Square 3 will anchor Phase 3 of the newly created Technology Square, which links back to Georgia Tech’s main campus. The design calls for a “vertically-oriented quad” that directly engages the 5th Street corridor through a characteristically Southern ‘porch’ socializing space located at the ground level.

Rendering courtesy EskewDumezRipple

Two 14- and 18-story masses are combined into one building that supports the university’s Executive MBA program and H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering connected by a central shared core. A vertical rooftop garden element completes the project, situated on top of an architectural staircase that helps unify the building with an outdoor promenade.

Rendering courtesy EskewDumezRipple

EskewDumezRipple says...

A ‘textural and reflective building skin’ wraps the University of Washington’s new Health Sciences Education Building

2023-10-12T14:08:00-04:00

A team comprising The Miller Hull Partnership, The S/L/A/M Collaborative, and Lease Crutcher Lewis has completed the new Health Sciences Education Building at the University of Washington in Seattle. Designed using a ‘culture of care’ philosophy, the scheme seeks to provide a “shared physical space that sparks innovation and creativity among students.”

Image credit: Moris Moreno

Marking a new entrance to the university’s South Campus, the Health Sciences Education Building is the first project to be delivered as part of a wider campus master plan. While the existing campus prioritizes an indoor circulation system between buildings, the new scheme seeks to pull people outdoors and introduce a new network of accessible pathways, murals, and sculptural public art, as well as outdoor seating areas.

Image credit: Moris Moreno

The building is constructed of a hybrid system using steel, concrete, and cross-laminated timber. Inside, the incl...

Alejandro Aravena to deliver the new home of the School of Architecture, Art and Design in Monterrey, Mexico

2023-09-21T12:30:00-04:00

Pritzker laureate Alejandro Aravena and his firm ELEMENTAL S.A have been announced as the project leads to deliver the new home of the School of Architecture, Art and Design (EAAD) to the Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM) in Mexico.

The scope of the new Classrooms 10 project entails a new building at the Avenida Junco de la Vega that will house the school’s Architecture, Design, Digital Art, and Urbanism programs, all of which are currently spread throughout multiple facilities at its Monterrey flagship campus. The university also operates 21 satellite campuses across Mexico, though no plans appear to be in development for any of their locations.

Aravena visited the campus in late August to workshop the idea with students and faculty at the university. Dean Rodolfo Barragán says the project will leave “a place with urban significance” that integrates ITESM’s presence with Monterrey’s Central Park while “highlighting and giving meaning to the activities that will be appropri...

TenBerke announces University of Washington residence hall project with Mahlum Architects

2023-07-28T12:25:00-04:00

TenBerke has announced a new dormitory project for the University of Washington in Seattle co-led with local mainstays Mahlum Architects, a leader in green building design.

The scope of the new Haggett Hall project encompasses a 200,000-square-foot residential hall with 800 beds and a fitness center located in the North Campus neighborhood of UW, which is currently undergoing a housing-focused transformation.

The firm’s first-ever West Coast project will incorporate its surroundings on an acre-and-a-half site on the periphery of campus and a woodland area. The project will be delivered using an “integrated design-build process” with Anderson Construction as its lead contractor and using the findings of a student engagement process that began in May.

Senior Principal Arthi Krishnamoorthy says it is part of TenBerke’s push to deliver a new generation of student housing marked b...

Inside three upgraded Columbia University science labs by Shakespeare, Gordon, Vlado: Architects

2023-07-24T11:52:00-04:00

Shakespeare, Gordon, Vlado: Architects (SGVA) has completed a series of research laboratories for Columbia University. Initiated in 2018, the project aimed to “modernize and repurpose” Columbia’s existing facilities to accommodate the expanding needs of the university's biological sciences, chemistry, and physics departments.

Physics Lab. Photo credit: Alexander Severin

The three projects centered on a chemistry lab at Havemeyer Hall, a biochemistry lab at Fairchild Center, and a physics lab at Pupin Hall. Each laboratory project involved the complete renovation of the existing spaces along with “innovative design concepts to facilitate the new and future goals for scientists and their teams in advancing their research.”

Chemistry Lab. Photo credit: Alexander Severin

Havemeyer Hall's chemistry lab was transformed into a state-of-the-art 2,800 square-foot research facility, outfitted with a Biosaf...

J. MAYER H. completes cantilevering pavilion for FOM University’s Düsseldorf campus

2023-07-05T11:13:00-04:00

J. MAYER H. has completed a new pavilion for the FOM University campus in Düsseldorf, Germany. The structure adds to a larger university building completed by the firm five years ago, bringing a new social space to the 86,000-square-foot campus on the site of a former cargo train station.

Image credit: David Franck

The pavilion features shaded outdoor terraces underneath a cantilevering floating roof. Described as an annex to the main building, the inside of the facility offers over 1,000 square feet of social spaces.

Image credit: David Franck

“The FOM Pavilion adapts to the amorphous green landscape that interweaves the various levels of access to the university building and as a soft soil sculpture covers the underground garage beneath,” the design team explained in a statement. “As an addition to the university building, the pavilion provides spaces for seminars and lectures, workshops and social gatherings.”

Image credit: David ...

Steven Holl Architects reveals design for UPenn's new Student Performing Arts Center

2023-06-16T16:57:00-04:00

Steven Holl Architects has unveiled renderings for their design of a new Student Performing Arts Center on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadephia.

The 37,300-square-foot structure will provide dedicated space for the performing arts at Penn and features a 300-seat proscenium theater, 125-seat studio theater, support spaces, and five rehearsal studios. The firm says they will pursue a LEED-silver certification for the project, which is sited on the northeast quadrant of the 1,085-acre campus as a new gateway between the university and city beyond.

“It is a great joy and honor to work on a performing arts center for the students of this historic university on such an important site,” Holl stated.

Image courtesy Steven Holl Architects

The design for the Center itself evokes the iconic nearby Fisher Fine Arts Library, repeating the use of red terracotta in its façade while separating the program into unique suspended trapezoidal masses that are meant to echo the move...

Toyo Ito completes work on the largest mass timber building in Asia

2023-05-23T18:00:00-04:00

Toyo Ito has shared photo and video updates at the conclusion of his firm’s monumental academic building project, titled "Gaia," for the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore.

The completed mass timber design is now reportedly the largest of its kind in Asia, topping out at six stories and a total of 468,000 square feet. It is the new home of NTU’s Business School and comes equipped with a 190-seat auditorium, 12 large lecture halls, seminar rooms, laboratories, graduate student and faculty offices, and multiple classroom spaces.

Image courtesy NTU Singapore.

Bricks held over from the former NTU Innovation Centre were also repurposed as a decorative wall inside the new structure. The design recently garnered the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore’s Green Mark Platinum (Zero Energy) building award for its impressive sustainable performance metrics, which led to over 2,500 fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide being used per year.

Ima...

Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects' latest adaptive reuse project takes center stage at Chapman University

2023-05-08T12:36:00-04:00

A new adaptive reuse academic project from Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects (LOHA) for Chapman University is getting students' feet moving following the completion of the Sandi Simon Dance Center this January.

The project remade an aging century-old former fruit packing warehouse space operated by the school’s namesake, the orange growing magnate C.C. Chapman, into a 72,000-square-foot educational and performance facility complete with new five dance studios, breakout areas, classrooms, and a lounge.

Photography by Eric Staudenmaier

Acoustic upgrades were paramount to the project, along with a full seismic retrofit and a new circulation strategy that reorganized the structure’s interior into three levels. An influx of natural sunlight is incorporated through a precise cut into the original floor, allowing for the introduction of new volumes that house separate programs and are connected by a multi-story central atrium.

Photography by Eric Staudenmaier

Phot...

Mass timber pedestrian bridge rises at Toronto's George Brown College

2023-04-28T14:26:00-04:00

Canadian construction company PCL Construction is celebrating a major milestone in the construction of George Brown College’s new Limberlost Place on Toronto’s waterfront, with the installation of a mass timber pedestrian bridge.

Standing 65 feet above street level, the structure connects level five of Limberlost Place to level six of the college’s Daphne Cockwell Center for Health Sciences. The 10-story Limberlost Place is reportedly set to be the first mass timber, net-zero carbon emissions institutional building of its kind in Ontario. It was designed by a team consisting of Moriyama and Teshima Architects and Acton Ostry Architects. The building is expected to be completed by 2024 and will be open for classes in January 2025.

Video via PCL Construction on YouTube

The pedestrian bridge stretches approximately 70 feet and is made up of two glue-laminated trusses and four cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels. Individual CLT pieces were prefabricated at an off-site location befor...

Deborah Berke Partners unveils completed adaptive reuse project for Harvard Law School

2023-03-07T15:35:00-05:00

A transformational new adaptive reuse project for Harvard Law School’s Lewis International Law Center has been completed recently by Deborah Berke Partners.

Meant to “holistically” meet the demands posed by modern legal education, the project remade the original 1957 Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson, and Abbott design into a “porous, open connector” located at the heart of HLS’ Cambridge campus.

Photo: Chris Cooper, courtesy Deborah Berke Partners

Existing limestone edifices were removed to add an influx of natural light into the structure, which retained 80% of its original concrete foundation, steel-frame structure, and most of its modernist envelope. Terraces were added to the fifth floor and rooftop. A slate of new or repositioned entrances now helps to define the project’s exterior renovations, with the end of enabling greater accessibility to a campus that is now addressed from all sides.

Photo: Chris Cooper, courtesy Deborah Berke Partners

Photo: Chris Cooper, courtesy Deborah Ber...

Perkins&Will begins construction on mass timber gateway to University of British Columbia campus

2023-01-04T11:15:00-05:00

Construction is underway on the $180 million Gateway Building at the University of British Columbia, designed by Perkins&Will and Schmidt Hammer Lassen. Intended as a “principal point of entry” to the UBC campus, the design of the six-story, 267,000-square-foot mass timber building seeks to balance sustainability, personal well-being, and Indigenous collaboration.

Image credit: Perkins&Will

The scheme comprises two five-story wings connected by a central naturally-lit six-story atrium, which includes a large interconnecting staircase and lounging spaces. The building’s mass timber structure is fully expressed in the interior; a decision driven by the importance of timber for the Indigenous Musqueam people on whose territory the UBC campus sits.

Image credit: Perkins&Will

“This was the first capital project where we did what we call ‘deep engagement’ with the Musqueam,” UBC’s director of planning and design Gerry McGeough told Canada’s Journal of Commerce. “We went through a whole seri...

Howard University selects Moody Nolan and KGD Architecture to design new building that will house the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts

2022-11-01T16:35:00-04:00

Howard University has selected Moody Nolan and the Washington DC-based KGD Architecture to design the next piece in its ongoing $785 million campus revitalization.

According to a press announcement by Moody Nolan, once completed, the new Center for Fine Arts & Communications will contain the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, Cathy Hughes School of Communications, and house the University's television and radio stations (WHUR/WHUT.) The new fine arts center was named after the late actor and class of 2000 graduate last year in recognition of his dedication to preserving and fostering arts education at the University.

In September 2021, the school installed letters to the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts. Image still courtesy of Howard University.

"For the KGD | Moody Nolan team, this represents a transcendent design opportunity," shared Howard alum, Moody Nolan Partner, and the project's design executive Renauld Deandre Mitchell. "The Center for Fine Arts and Communica...

Perkins&Will will design a new STEM facility at Howard University

2022-10-28T17:43:00-04:00

A trio led by Perkins&Will has been selected to design a new STEM center for Howard University as part of the HBCU's well-publicized and long-overdue makeover.

The firm will collaborate with the local women- and BIPOC-owned firms K. Dixon Architecture and R. McGhee & Associates (both run by Howard alums) to deliver a seven-story new research facility that will eventually be shared by the university’s College of Engineering and Architecture and College of Arts & Sciences.

The team will renovate Howard’s historic C.B. Powell Building as part of the project, which university President Wayne A. I. Frederick called a “watershed moment” in the school’s 155-year history.

Image courtesy Perkins&Will

Howard is in the midst of a historic five-year $785 million master plan that will revitalize its campus with three new state-of-the-art academic buildings and other renovations in line with the federal government's larger $2.7 billion commitment to HBCUs that was first announced in March.

“The S...

Deborah Berke Partners and Ballinger to lead new Integrated Life Sciences Building project at Brown University

2022-10-18T11:04:00-04:00

Brown University has announced the selection of Deborah Berke Partners and Ballinger to lead a new Integrated Life Sciences Building project near its Providence, Rhode Island campus.

The new structure will be located near Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School in the city’s Jewelry District and offers a consolidation of labs and other facilities for researchers in public health, bioengineering, and other types of related scientific activity.

“We aim to satisfy the work needs of the initial occupants and the current science but not to be so specific and customized that the space can’t evolve as science — and scientists — change,” Ballinger senior principal Terry Steelman explained.

Related on Archinect: AIA Healthcare Design Awards 2021 winners announced

"These buildings have a long lifespan and accommodate a wide range of occupants, in some cases for the short-term. So much will change over the lifespan of the building," he added. "When we designed Sidney Frank Hall, for example, gene...

BIG breaks ground on a transformational new science center at California's Claremont McKenna College

2022-10-05T18:36:00-04:00

A new higher-ed project from BIG has broken ground on the campus of California’s Claremont McKenna College.

The 135,000-square-foot Robert Day Sciences Center provides facilities for a newly-funded program of integrated scientific research into neurology, genealogical studies, and climate change while spearheading a series of improvements aimed at preparing the 76-year-old school for its "next chapter."

Image courtesy BIG

In keeping with this notion, BIG positioned the structure as a gateway to the rest of the campus’ academic buildings. A pair of rectangular block volumes stack on top of one another, outlined along their edges by wood-clad trusses and bookended by a transparent glass curtain facade. Each individual volume is rotated 45 degrees away from the floor below it to enable a sky-lit central glass-covered atrium filled with open spaces that engender collaboration between students and faculty.

Image courtesy BIG

BIG’s founder explains: "The...

See inside DS+R's newly-opened Prior Performing Arts Center at the College of the Holy Cross

2022-09-29T15:15:00-04:00

Diller Scofidio + Renfro has shared new photos of its just-opened Prior Performing Arts Center at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The three-year, $110 million project culminated in an 84,000-square-foot multipurpose arts facility that houses a 400-seat proscenium theater, 200-seat studio space, and the relocated Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, which has garnered a reputation as one of the leading academic art museums in the country since first being founded in 1983.

Photo: Iwan Baan courtesy of DS+R

“The new Prior Performing Arts Center is an uncommon commons,” DS+R partner-in-charge Charles Renfro describes the project. “The building is uniquely perched on a hill overlooking the campus and Worcester, yet straddles the intersection of multiple cross-campus paths. While its world-class facilities provide a singular new home for Holy Cross's performing arts students, its atrium invites the broader student body to participate in casual and unscripted cr...

Looking to the future, Moody Nolan will lead the design of a new science center at Morgan State University

2022-07-11T14:36:00-04:00

In the face of many recent setbacks and other challenges befalling America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), the country’s largest African American-owned architecture firm, Moody Nolan, is now setting out once again to improve the prospects and educational resources of their community by leading the design services for a new science center for the campus of Morgan State University (MSU) in Baltimore, Maryland.

Coming in at a total project cost of $150 million, the 246,435-square-foot science center is expected to be completed by the year 2027 and will take the school even further toward its ultimate aim of becoming the first HBCU-classified R1 university by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

To date, the firm has completed more than 30 projects at HBCU campuses throughout the country, including the soon-to-be-opened Thurgood Marshall Hall residential housing at MSU, which has been pursuing an expansion of its STEM and other research...

Morphosis designs new arts and cultural district master plan at the University of Texas at Dallas

2022-06-07T15:20:00-04:00

A team led by Morphosis is designing a new 12-acre arts and cultural district at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Called the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenæum, the project will bring a second location of the Crow Museum of Asian Art as well as a performance hall and a planned museum for the traditional arts of the Americas. According to the architects, the new athenaeum breaks from the conventional, reserved model of this building type into one that prioritizes porosity, visibility, and informal connections between its users.

The structure will be located at the southeast corner of the University’s campus, organized around a central plaza and flanked by the museums and performance hall on the west and the parking structure to the east. To the north, the plaza aligns with social and green spaces that support the Naveen Jindal School of Management and Davidson Auditorium. On the opposite end, the arts district establishes a new public-facing presence for the University at the...

OPEN releases design for under-construction campus center in Suzhou

2022-05-12T13:54:00-04:00

OPEN Architecture has unveiled the design for a new campus center in the Chinese city of Suzhou. The Shangfeng Academy project, which topped out at the end of April, will be the site of a new K-12 international school and will also act as a cultural hub for the local community.

For this undertaking, OPEN was challenged with establishing a major new urban project while being mindful of the artistic and cultural tradition of the city.

The construction site.

The campus will serve close to 2,000 students and will include a library, art center, gymnasium, swimming pool, grand theater of 1,000 seats, a black box theater, and a forum. Given the variety of users and programs, OPEN decided to divide the school into five individual buildings interconnected by covered walkways. As a result, voids are formed, which make way for four gardens and semi-outdoor spaces. The walkways accommodate large numbers of students, and the gardens act as buffer zones.

A render of the Autumn garden and the for...

Woods Bagot will lead a new adaptive reuse project in Hobart for the University of Tasmania

2022-01-26T15:20:00-05:00

An underused piece of award-winning architecture in Australia is getting a makeover thanks to one of the country’s leading firms.

ArchitectureAU is reporting that the iconic one-time Forestry Tasmania headquarters in Hobart is set for an adaptive reuse scheme from Woods Bagot that will convert the dome and former warehouse space into an academic facility for the University of Tasmania.

The dome was designed around two existing 1930s structures by UTAS professor Robert Morris-Nunn in 1997. It received the RAIA’s Recycled Buildings award the next year and has been listed on Tasmania’s state heritage register for over three decades. The architect is now working closely with Woods Bagot on restoring his design, which he described as being a “wonderful” development for the community.

“Seeing the building fall into disuse over the last few years has been really sad, so to know that the University is planning to restore it, and even reinstate the forest under the dome, is amazing news,” ...

Henning Larsen unveils a new campus center for the MCI in Austria

2021-12-15T17:01:00-05:00

Promising “a view of the Alps from every window,” Henning Larsen has unveiled new designs for a university building in Austria that will unite the diffuse Management Center Innsbruck (MCI) campus in a world-class learning environment, according to the architects.

Promoted as a standard-bearer for “openness, identity, communication, and design excellence”, the 35,000-square-meter (377,000-square-foot) building is located on the edge of the city center and was commended by the selection committee as an “ideal urban development of the new campus as a lighthouse project between the historic Hofgarten, the University of Social Sciences, and the new security center.”

Visualization by Sora courtesy Henning Larsen

MCI has been steadily growing since first being established in 1995. A byproduct of that growth has meant that the university’s facilities are now spread out across the city in a number of different areas of Innsbruck. Henning Larsen has thus leveraged its six decades of experience...