The Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, at the University of Michigan, opened on September 8th with a new building designed by Preston Scott Cohen. The  A. Alfred Taubman Wing will offer an additional 36,000 square feet of studio and common spaces for reviews, conferences and other events. The building is designed to facilitate encounters and conversation, and to transform the relationship between faculty and students.

Read the full press release: 

The A. Alfred Taubman Wing provides an additional 36,000 square feet to the existing 72,000 square foot facility project includes a renovation of the existing college facilities. Architecture and urban planning education increasingly calls on spaces for group work and spaces to design and build. The wing and renovations provide additional studio space per student and collaboration rooms, as well as 5,700 square foot commons space which will also be used to host conferences, final reviews, and other special events.

Internally, the building is composed around a series of remarkable spiral-like stairs and ramps that create perambulatory sequences carefully choreographed to create encounters between faculty and students. Externally, a saw-tooth roof reflects warm light, unifying the orthogonal geometry of the studio with the hexagonal and ramped commons. A plaza underneath the new building provides and outside gathering and exhibition space to foster community.

The new A. Alfred Taubman Wing of Taubman College will provide: 

• 5,700 square foot double-height commons
• The commons creates a new center for the life of the school and brings architecture and planning, faculty and students together for new forms of collaboration. It will also be a center for major events including conferences and end-of-the-year final reviews.
• 8 capstone and group study rooms
• The capstone rooms are for instructional and student use, and will create a home for urban planning capstone courses and student journals, Dimensions (architecture) and Agora (urban planning).
• 2,400 square foot state-of-the-art classroom
• Ground floor class room was designed with access to natural light and can accommodate the largest class sizes of the college.
• 5,500 square foot of additional studio space
• This will increase the square footage student space per student by 20 percent.
• New and renovated faculty and staff offices
• Faculty and staff offices are located around the studio spaces for easy access by students.
• Student lounges overlooking the commons on the second and third floors.
• Reading Room to serve as a link between college and Art, Architecture and Engineering Library, located at the Duderstadt Center.

Design Architect: Preston Scott Cohen, Inc., based in Cambridge, Mass., is well known for designs for public structures that bring a unique approach to shaping space and light, notably the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Amir Building, Tel Aviv, Israel (2013); the Taiyuan Museum of Art in Taiyuan, China (under construction); the Datong City Library, Datong, China (under construction); and the Arcade Canopy, Battery Park City, New York (2012). The firm’s work has been widely published, has been collected by major museums, and has garnered numerous awards, including several Progressive Architecture Awards and the Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Architect of Record: Integrated Design Solutions (IDS), an architectural firm based in Troy, MI led by President Paul Stachowiak, a graduate of Taubman College (B.S. '76, M Arch '77) has been a local collaborative partner in many major Michigan architecture projects including Zaha Hadid’s Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum in East Lansing, Michigan, and University of Michigan’s Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The building addition and renovation project was funded by a major gift from the late A. Alfred Taubman, as well as a generous gift from the late King C. Stutzman, additional funds from the U-M Offices of the President, Provost, and Chief Financial Officer, and the support of alumni and friends. The total budget for the entire project (addition and renovation of existing facilities) is $28.5 million.