VSBA

The Perelman Quadrangle expands the original functions of Houston Hall across Penn Commons into parts of the surrounding Irvine Auditorium and College, Claudia Cohen, and Williams Halls. In the process each is preserved and adapted and helped to reestablish the importance it once held, on an augmented and replenished Quadrangle. The central space, Penn Commons, lined by Collegiate Gothic and High Victorian buildings, set with shade trees and enriched with seating, rostrums and heraldry, will once again form a memorable image of the University of Pennsylvania.

Irvine Auditorium was designed by Horace Trumbauer in 1929. Irvine is distinguished by its bold, brightly, colorful stencils covering nearly all wall surfaces, and its 30,000-pipe Curtis Organ (designed for the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial).
We adaptively restored the great hall of Irvine Auditorium as a multi-use performance hall with a 1200-seat capacity. Our renovations provide the auditorium with modern sight-lines and acoustical, lighting, and environmental conditions for music, speech, and organ performances, while we preserved its chromatic architectural glory and its historic organ.

Due to its great interior height, which produced long reverberation times, and its square shape, the auditorium was never an acoustic success. Because of this problem, it received very little use over the years, and was allowed to deteriorate. Working with acoustician George Izenour Associates, we improved acoustics by removing two side balconies and thereby reconfiguring Irvine into a classic shoebox shape, with acoustic baffles at the sides to reflect sound back to the audience. Removing the balconies also produced two adjacent two-story spaces — one which became a cafe, the other a 125-seat recital hall. A permanent acoustic shell was added to the expanded stage, projecting sound out to the audience. Moveable absorptive banners were added in the 120′ high tower, in order to control the reverberation times.

The decorative stencil pattern at the auditorium interior was completely restored to its original brilliance by Conrad Schmidt Studios, with the technical assistance of Noble Preservation.
Student practice rooms, meeting rooms, a rehearsal hall, expanded lobby spaces, and appropriate backstage spaces are also part of the restoration scheme. A new campus-side entry from the Commons to Irvine will facilitate day-to-day use and enhance Irvine’s participation in the Quadrangle.

VSBA has worked with the renowned Curtis Institute of Music to expand its urban campus, from design of the new Lenfest Hall education, performance, and residence building through a series of renovations to different buildings.

This renovation feasibility study was conducted for Curtis’s historic Main Building, which incorporates three structures — the George W. Childs Drexel mansion, the Edward A. Sibley house, and the Field Concert Hall. Since 1893, these buildings have undergone numerous renovations.

VSBA’s study assesses the Main Building’s existing conditions and explores options for improving the exterior building envelope; circulation; accessibility; and HVAC, plumbing, electrical, fire, and life safety systems — all while maintaining the building’s historic architectural character. (Due to the building’s historic designation, improvements and repairs require review by the Philadelphia Historical Commission.)

Our preliminary analysis describes the scope of work for estimating preliminary construction costs and phasing. VSBA completed the first increment of this planned work: renovation of a kitchenette, corridor, and several bathrooms.

VSBA worked with the University of Virginia to develop a master plan and program for revitalizing the student activities precinct within the University’s Central Grounds, adjacent to Thomas Jefferson’s historic Academical Village. The goal of the master plan was to create a new “university commons” complex integrating both academic and social functions and providing more opportunities for the entire university community to interact formally and informally.

VSBA studied sites and refined a program for expanding student life activities in the vicinity of Newcomb Hall, the University’s original student center, and investigating ways to improve connections within the precinct and between the precinct and the rest of the campus. As the first phase of the master plan, VSBA was asked to consider the design of a new $15,000,000, 70,000 gsf student life building. Newcomb Hall was to be renovated during a second phase of work.

The study also included planning for Alderman and Clemmons libraries, which are adjacent to Newcomb Hall, focusing on ways that activities in the libraries can enrich and complement the university commons.

VSBA prepared a program analysis and conceptual site capacity studies for a unique multidisciplinary center focused on practice and research in the contemplative sciences.

Programming began with research into different paradigms for the center and included interviews with a broad array of stakeholders and academic disciplines. Work culminated in the preparation of detailed individual Room Data Sheets and a summary Program Work Sheet. Options for blocking and stacking layouts were then developed to test the capacity of a central campus site to support the programs. Bases-of-design were used to prepare estimates of probable cost.

VSBA was recently hired to design extensive renovations to Princeton’s interconnected Fisher, Bendheim, and Corwin Halls, which will provide space for the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs as well as politics, gender and sexuality studies, and computer sciences.

Our work — including programming, design, furnishings, signage, and window replacement — is helping to preserve the building’s history while accommodating new users and updated amenities.
The scope encompasses office, meeting, teaching, study, and social spaces for several academic departments and study centers that will be moving into the renovated spaces. Our designs take a fresh look at how faculty work and teach and how students learn and study, in the context of changing technologies and teaching methods.

Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates designed Princeton’s Fisher and Bendheim Halls in 1990. Our renovations respect and celebrate core elements of the original designs, while sensitively introducing new programs and activities.

“…[W]e’ll remain true to our legacy (and our promise) as we grow and adapt in ways that are informed by who and what we are, and value.” — College President Stephen Emerson, February 2008

“The master plan will serve as a living document and decision making tool, providing guidance for the development of the college well into the future. The plan will balance our ambitions for academic and institutional development with our commitment to sustaining the physical beauty of the campus and its buildings. The plan aims to be comprehensive, historically responsive, and environmentally proactive, and to take into consideration what Haverford College has been in the past, where it is today, and where it sees itself going in the next quarter of a century.” — from the Haverford College Master Plan Website

VSBA was invited by Haverford to serve as planner for this “living document.” Key study areas included the performing and visual arts; office, research, and teaching spaces for faculty and students, particularly in the humanities and social sciences; and student activity and social spaces. We related these specific concerns to broader development questions for access, linkage, growth, and conservation, as well as Haverford’s needs for preserving and maintaining its heritage of historic buildings. We also addressed ways to preserve and maintain the beloved landscape; provide greater accessibility; create space for community activities; and provide effective environmental stewardship.

Haverford’s Quaker roots suggested decision-making by consensus, so every member of the campus faculty, student body, and staff was invited to participate in the planning process. We conducted over 400 interviews (individually and in groups) and worked closely with a Steering Committee of faculty, staff, and students to develop the plan. We met with Haverford Township representatives and presented at regular intervals to the Property Committee of the Board of Managers; we discussed the plan at key phases with groups of faculty, alums, and students and at meetings open to the entire campus community.

VSBA’s plan for the 216 acre campus creatively re-animates the historic campus core while shaping connections to new facilities. Maintaining and augmenting the primacy of Founders Green in the hierarchy of outdoor spaces, even as new greens are developed, supports a coherent sense of the College as one place, one community — and focusing density in the core helps preserve the natural areas and open greens that give the campus its distinctive character. VSBA recommended growing within existing space when possible and suggested uses for both existing and new structures.

Our plan studied the spatial implications of recommendations to add faculty over the next several years in order to shift toward increased student-faculty collaborative scholarship. We analyzed the scheduling of classrooms and social spaces to quantify anecdotal information about a perceived shortages of space. In fact, we found that current needs could be met by making better use of existing facilities through minor alterations (such as, for example, refurnishing selected classrooms to better suit current pedagogies) and making scheduling changes. In the course of our work, we also explored options and devised a text fit for a new culture and media center to promote scholarship and teaching in the arts, social sciences, and humanities.

 

Haverford’s campus master plan is available online: http://www.haverford.edu/facilities/campus_master_plan/

The Anlyan Center for Medical Research and Education at the Yale University School of Medicine is the centerpiece of the institution’s facilities plan for the next decade, providing state-of-the-art laboratory space for disease-based research, core facilities for mouse genomics and magnetic resonance imaging, and teaching facilities for anatomy and histology.  It is the largest capital project ever undertaken at Yale University, increasing research space at the medical school by 25%.

The complex is composed of two wings linked by a shared lobby at the east end.  It is entered through a curved limestone arcade that defines a plaza facing Cedar Avenue, the major north south axis of the medical school campus.  The wings enclose a landscaped courtyard that sits above magnetic resonance imaging facilities.  Exterior finishes and lighting are carried into the soaring lobby that connects the entry plaza with the courtyard.  The four-story wing containing medical education facilities, an auditorium, and a student lounge responds in scale to adjacent campus buildings along Congress Avenue.  The larger six-story wing housing research laboratories and offices will have research space constructed on the adjacent site in the future.

The building wings derive their forms and rhythm of windows from the generic order of the lab modules.  Street facades are brick, limestone and granite, continuing the traditional campus materials. Bands of black brick and brownstone trim create plays of scale and engage the viewer seeing the building close-up.  Within the courtyard, buff brick is used to enhance natural light and provide contrast to the street facades.

The plan concentrates labs on the building’s perimeter in order to benefit from natural light and external views.  Lab floor plans are arranged in repetitive generic modules accommodating spatial and mechanical flexibility.  Eight research programs are accommodated in the initial laboratory plan.  The magnetic resonance center includes both MRI and MRS research and will serve patients from the Yale-New Haven Hospital.  Yale’s medical education facilities include a gross anatomy laboratory, histology teaching laboratory, and small group seminar and conference spaces.

“From the day I was selected to serve in this role, people have been asking me to share my vision for the university.  It is not complicated.  I want Villanova to be Villanova….We know what we do well and we must strive to do it better…” — from Father Peter Donohue’s inauguration speech

“I have initiated the development of a campus master plan to evaluate many aspects of our campus and assess current and future needs for space.  The campus master plan will be a roadmap for future construction, renewal, and maintenance.” — from Father Peter Donohue’s message to the University, April 2007

VSBA was invited to work with Villanova to plan this roadmap.  Through our planning, we strove to nurture a beautiful, amenable, and sustainable campus to support the Augustinian ideal of living and studying amongst friends in an atmosphere of hospitality and scholarship — honoring heritage while supporting aspirations for the present and future.   Our campus master planning helped to:

• provide facilities, landscapes, and physical linkages to support Villanova as a residential, co-educational, and multi-cultural institution with a world-wide perspective
• plan for student residential facilities to support Villanovan ideals of community, meet the University’s commitment to housing underclassmen, and house seniors
• plan for academic and cultural facilities — including a performing arts center and library — to support student engagement in curricular and co-curricular activities
• increase opportunities for interdisciplinary activities and scholarship, especially intercollege
• support a safe and amenable pedestrian campus experience, with campus entrances that are distinctive, clear, and welcoming — while meeting needs for access, parking, and service
• knit and integrate disparate and disjointed use and activity patterns, landscapes, circulation routes, and infrastructure to make a varied yet coherent whole.

Components of the plan include:

• a pedestrian-friendly “hamlet of Villanova” — a townscape nicknamed after the home of St. Augustine of Hippo — with performing arts center, ground-floor University retail with student housing above, and structured parking tucked behind.  With improved pedestrian connections across Lancaster Avenue, the “hamlet” will help extend the University image to its properties (now largely surface parking) across the avenue while significantly increasing the proportion of students living on campus.
• a pedestrian-centered, bicycle-friendly campus core, with accessible connections to transit and to campus areas beyond
• a re-imagined and renewed heart of campus, with large shade trees, green lawn, and more lively mix of uses
• a renovated and augmented center of student activity
• reprogramming and renewing key buildings to create more intentional adjacencies and relationships; additions meet space needs while allowing entrances and greater transparency along busy pedestrian routes; sites reserved for future academic development ensure future flexibility.

Over the course of the plan, we developed programs and guidelines for academic and administrative offices; food service facilities at the heart of campus; academic classroom space; student life facilities; and student residences.  At Villanova, the anecdotal shortage of space was well-supported by data.  For example, our analysis of information available from the Registrar illustrated that classroom utilization was well above most accepted standards, barely leaving time for overnight custodial staff to maintain spaces.  This data provided a context for capital budget requests to the Board of Trustees.

We helped the University draft capital budgets for the next 20 years and identified triggers for upgrades and additions to central utilities and other infrastructure.

Villanova is a residential institution — albeit a privately funded one, with a larger population — aiming to improve its arts facilities, improve student housing, and balance deferred maintenance with the construction of needed new facilities.  Our plan quantified these needs, assigned costs to meeting them, and provided a phased set of implementation guidelines.

 

Villanova’s campus master plan is available online:  http://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/president/initiatives/masterplan.html

The purpose of this study was to provide options for improving and expanding Memorial Union and Union South so that these buildings can continue to support the evolving mission and activities of the Wisconsin Union.  Memorial Union, located at the intersection of “town and gown” on Lake Mendota, has provided a place for the University community to gather since 1927, and its Italianate portico and lakeside terrace have become emblems of the Union and of the University as a whole.  Union South was built in 1969 to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding campus, and now provides activities and amenities to an under-served area of campus.

Key themes and goals of the Plan were to:

• establish an overall framework and hierarchy for improving the Union’s buildings, relating physical priorities to social and financial policies
• provide spaces and physical linkages encouraging and nurturing a sense of community and interaction
• encourage an intensity of cultural, recreational, and social activities that will continue to attract students and members to Union facilities
• increase the beauty and utility of Memorial Union and Union South
• promulgate an understanding of the Union’s buildings — their physical development, aesthetic dimensions, present conditions, and future options — and their place, historically and today, on campus and in Madison
• consider opportunities for expansion
• consider Memorial Union and Union South in the context of plans for their surroundings
• provide functional, efficient, and pleasant space for Union users and staff, and upgrade technology throughout the building for the benefit of all
• provide space for a balance of revenue and non-revenue-producing activities in a way supporting the Union’s mission and allowing it to thrive.

VSBA helped the University of Michigan create an evolving master plan for its 3,000-acre campus, whose fundamental goal was to identify opportunities to intellectually and physically link campus precincts.

We discovered a critical need for users to cross from the Central Campus to the Medical Center Campus, separated by tricky topography and a busy state highway.  The Palmer Drive “cathole” site — once a lake and later used for parking and campus services — was jamming the line of communication between the two campuses.

Borrowing an idea from transportation planners, we drew an east-west “desire line” between the University’s arts and sciences (which connected with an arts corridor leading into Ann Arbor) and a north-south line between Main Campus’s academic sciences and the Medical Center’s research.  The Arts-Science Axis and Life Sciences Diag intersected at the Palmer Drive site.  Here we proposed the University’s new Life Sciences complex, which, by linking different campuses and arts with sciences, serves as both a meeting of minds and a meeting place of minds.

The Life Sciences Institute (LSI) houses research labs, Palmer Commons offers student services and amenities, and the Undergraduate Science Building (USB) has labs, classrooms, and offices.  The 854,700 gsf, $188,000,000 complex is linked and united by an elevated, interwoven cluster of pathways and gathering places situated atop a five-level parking garage; at its lowest level, the garage incorporates a 1,000,000 gallon detention basin to manage storm water for the site and surrounding precinct.

Sustainability and contextuality are critical themes throughout our designs.  In LSI and USB, natural sunlight is important to lab quality, so we located most workstations within 10 feet of large windows.  Labs on the upper floors take advantage of external views, while public entries and lobbies are located on the plaza walkway level.  The buildings’ exteriors respect the Main Campus’s early 20th century loft styles.  Their material palettes consist largely of stone, including brownstone, sandstone, limestone, and granite.  Outward-facing facades complement the red brick found on the campus’s masonry buildings, while brighter, light-reflecting colors line the buildings’ inner facades.  Black and white glazed terra cotta tiles evoke the carved details of UM’s traditional buildings, while Palmer Commons’ large expanse of aluminum-framed curtainwall facing Palmer field and the dormitories visually reinforces the communal, public nature of the facility.

In counterpoint to Palmer Drive’s spacious and generic buildings, the cluster of pedestrian walkways — public, informal, and as complex as the streets of a medieval town — provides space indoors and out for people to gather, relax, and study.  As a “meeting place of minds,” these paths and the complex as a whole encourage students, researchers, and faculty members from different disciplines to gather casually, a place where “accidental” meetings can lead to exciting discussions and serendipitous discoveries.  After all, Nobel Prizes can arise from chats over coffee counters as well as at lab benches.

The Life Sciences Institute (designed in collaboration with SmithGroup) houses multi-disciplinary research lab space.  Its design derives from regular, repetitive lab modules; a generic structure also accommodates flexibility over time as technology and research change.  Interior “streets” run from labs and offices to stairs and elevators, passing near informal interaction spaces where people can gather, relax, change their focal length, and discuss ideas around a whiteboard.

The multi-purpose Undergraduate Science Building contains laboratories, teaching facilities, faculty offices, and a lobby coffee shop.  Interior “streets” (with cozy eddies and nooks for meeting and studying) tie the building’s circulation to the Art-Science Axis and the complex’s inner court.

Palmer Commons is a place to be shared by students, researchers, people from the performing arts, and others going between the Main and Medical Campuses.  It can offer gathering and conference spaces, a deli and café on the walkway level, and a convenience store by the entrance.

VSBA designed this major new multi-use music education and student residence building for the renowned Curtis Institute of Music. The expansion — on a historic block of Philadelphia’s Locust Street — provides state-of-the-art facilities for practice and teaching, an orchestral rehearsal room, and student residences, all in close proximity to existing facilities on Rittenhouse Square. Amenities include dining and social spaces and an outdoor terrace shared by students, faculty, and staff. The project has achieved LEED Gold certification.

The building incorporates box-in-box construction to provide appropriate acoustical isolation of all music spaces. The rehearsal hall is designed for flexible use with adjustable acoustics and is equipped with separate audio and visual recording studios. All teaching spaces and studios have recording/playback systems. Structural and mechanical systems were carefully designed to meet demanding acoustical requirements.

Our design responds to the scale and character of the historic streetscape. A four-story façade on Locust Street is clad in brown sandstone with window groupings and horizontal accents that relate to the rhythm of neighboring townhouses. To either side we preserved and restored existing historic façades, incorporating them into the design to help preserve the character of the street. Yet our work concurrently promotes the new, 21st century identity of the expanded institution: a carved frieze across the façade identifies the building with a bit of civic flair, a projected bay window highlights the entry, and generous windows express the 30′ high rehearsal hall.

We worked closely with near neighbors, community groups, and other stakeholders to build consensus for the design and secure approval from the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Of particular note, student residences are located in a tower set far back from Locust Street and clad in a beige-gray brick; this renders it minimally visible from Locust Street and apparently a separate building. We created a series of sun-shadow studies to visualize the impact of the tower’s shadow throughout the year to ensure minimal shading of historic St. Mark’s Church across the street. On the building’s other side, a setback the use of red brick continues the scale of Latimer Street’s buildings while beige brick above reflects sunlight into the narrow street.

Photos by Tom Crane and Matt Wargo

In a 1997 message to the University of Michigan community, President Lee Bollinger described a reassessment of the University’s physical campus, undertaken as it evolved at an unprecedented rate:

“In 1837…not even the most visionary civic and academic leaders could have imagined the reach of the campus we now occupy.  Today, our Ann Arbor Campus comprises five or six discrete campuses, each with its own geographic center and its own master plan.… The last ten years have witnessed an unprecedented period of construction on each of these campuses.  We are, however, at risk of centrifugal sprawl, of diluting our essential coherence and sense of community…. We need to conceive of our Campus as a whole and consider its place in the larger Ann Arbor community.  We need to take a long view, to consider what our University Campus might be like, what its character should be, one hundred years from now.”

VSBA was selected to be the planners for this conception of the whole.  In Phase 1, a “once-round-lightly,” we laid the groundwork for future stages of the planning process.  The plan’s key themes and most general goals are to:

• define a physical setting for the life of the mind of this great University and for those who use and support it
• establish an overall framework for development, relating physical plans to academic and financial policies
• promulgate an understanding of the physical campus, its historical development, present patterns and conditions, future options, and place in the growth of Ann Arbor
• provide facilities for education and research, nourish the arts on campus and in Ann Arbor, encourage an intensity of cultural, recreational, and social activities, and define a spectrum of on- and off-campus residential opportunities
• increase physical opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration University-wide, especially in relation to growth in the sciences
• define and develop the role of each University campus
• balance densification and outward expansion
• understand the University as a diverse, multicultural community and help define a physical “home” for each faculty, student, and staff member.

Phase 2 involved the deeper exploration of issues and preliminary options outlined in Phase 1 as well as the closer investigation of various campus subareas and subsystems.

A master plan for the Health System’s Medical Center Campus encompasses the Medical School, research labs, inpatient and outpatient clinical care components, and amenities for patients, visitors, faculty, doctors, and staff.  It includes the evaluation of sites on the Medical Center Campus for expanding clinical facilities, as well as the development of a master plan for satellite Health System sites that may provide ambulatory and primary care services.  (Out of our master planning, over 2,105,000 square feet of building space is being constructed.)  The East Ann Arbor medical satellite study concerns the site qualities and its capacity to support a variety of Health System programs.

In addition, VSBA directed broad studies conducted by University transportation consultants, and supervised environmental framework analyses and landscape documentation conducted within the master planning process to support the University’s goal of environmental stewardship.

Central Campus Programming and Site Capacity studies analyzed and developed options for an array of academic and administrative program needs for the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.  Our studies investigated options for new and adapted teaching and support facilities; social and academic interaction patterns for students and faculty; and patterns of pedestrian circulation, open space use, building access, and symbolic and visual character.  Further site capacity and precinct studies encompassed facilities for academic and research; theater, music, and arts; student housing; and athletics.

Our Law School Architectural Programming Study developed requirements and options for renewal and expansion of the historic Law School Quadrangle.  It focused on expanding academic programs and administrative services, improving opportunities for student/faculty interaction, enhancing Library collections storage and services, and improving building systems and technology access.

The major first increment of building resulting from our planning is the Palmer Drive Complex.  Planning helped locate and design this first Institute of the University’s newly-formed Life Sciences Initiative and related facilities.  The $188,000,000, 854,700 gsf complex (for which VSBA and Smith Group Inc. were architects) includes the Life Sciences Institute, Palmer Commons, Undergraduate Science Building, and five-level parking garage.  It connects the Central and Medical Center campuses, separated by topography and a busy thoroughfare, and helps to define an arts-sciences axis from a series of arts venues on- and off-campus.

The renovation of Rockefeller Hall and the construction of a new landscaped green in a decommissioned parking area — the first increments of Harvard Divinity School’s (HDS) campus plan — followed VSBA’s programming study for the campus, whose goals were to promote an enhanced sense of community at the School, strengthen connections between the Divinity School and the rest of the University, and optimize the use of HDS space in support of its academic mission.

Rockefeller Hall was designed by the distinguished Modern architect Edward Larrabee Barnes at the height of his career. Since its construction in 1970, very little of the building had been altered. It showed signs of obsolescence and of age, and HDS decided that dormitory rooms were no longer the best use of this important part of its campus. But Rockefeller Hall retained many virtues — including handsome, durable materials and large windows providing connections between inside and out. Its simple, rigorous Modernist aesthetic contrasted with the adjacent Collegiate Gothic Andover Hall and with the residential-scaled building along the neighboring streets. VSBA’s renovation:

• created more amenable, welcoming, up-to-date spaces at the first level for dining, meeting, attending classes, and lounging
• converted the upper level dormitory spaces to administrative offices for HDS administrative departments
• improved accessibility throughout the building and the site (the existing building had no elevator and the original site design made the building approach inaccessible)
• made modifications to maintain the stylistic integrity of Rockefeller Hall and preserve its place in the history and stylistic diversity of the Divinity School and Harvard campus
• reconfigured Rockefeller Hall’s landscape to strengthen connections between inside and outside, and between it and the rest of the HDS campus
• provided a sustainable, healthy environment that allows careful stewardship of School and University resources, initially and over the long term.

Our approach was to maintain the most critical aspects of Barnes’ design — its large windows and crisp geometries — while making the building and site more suitable to new and evolving uses and adherent to current standards of life safety and accessibility. Circulation throughout the building was made clearer and easier to navigate; introducing daylight to corridors added amenity and aided orientation.

The first floor is the most public, with seminar rooms, a lounge, and dining area; in many ways, this floor acts as a Divinity School campus center. The refectory, in particular, was made to feel more welcoming and lively, and the lounge was designed to serve as a much-needed campus “living room.” Levels two through four are administrative offices arranged in clusters to promote collegial interaction. Interior glazing brings daylight and amenity to corridors.

This project has been awarded LEED Gold certification. It was featured on the 2008 Educators’ Summit Sustainable Campus Tour of the U.S. Green Building Council, and, according to Harvard’s Office of Sustainability, this project includes “the most significant greenhouse gas reduction in a Harvard building to date.” Specific measures to promote health, efficiency, and green design include building reuse, transformation of a parking lot into a beautiful “greenscape,” the use of green materials, modernizing the building envelope, white TPO roof, occupancy sensors, and an Otis Gen II machine room-less traction elevator to reduce energy consumption.

In parallel with the design of a new Biomedical / Biological Science Research Building (BBSRB) at the University of Kentucky, VSBA was asked to study possible sites for the building to make maximum use of the Limestone-Virginia precinct.  It must serve its users well and meet the aspirations of the University while maintaining flexibility in light of evolving programmatic developments, trends in academic and research curricula, shifts in funding, and changes in the healthcare and academic environments.  The architecture and planning of the new sector must express and convey the nature and importance of its activities on campus.

To incept planning for both the new precinct and first increment buildings, VSBA’s plan considers the University’s patterns and systems at many scales.  It examines the Medical Center and Lexington Campuses in relation and in context, local and regional.  We considered the capacity of the Limestone-Virginia precinct itself; studied how relationships and activities around it may cross through or potentially impinge upon it; and attempted to define the possible impact of these conditions and connections on the planning and development of the site.  We have derived the footprints of lab buildings from established laboratory typologies and their layouts.

The Biomedical / Biological Sciences Research Building is the University of Kentucky’s major new home for science on campus.  Designed by VSBA in association with A. M. Kinney and HERA, the building is the first increment of our 2001 plan for UK’s Limestone-Virginia precinct — a burgeoning research, education, and health care center.

The facility has an open plan design to encourage interdisciplinary and collaborative work while providing the flexibility to adapt with evolving research.  By carefully siting the facility, we tried to nurture strong links between the academic campus and Medical Center campuses and provide a framework for future building.

The BBSRB houses 400 faculty, staff, and students from the College of Medicine’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry; the Institute for Molecular Medicine; the Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center; and the Drug Abuse Treatment Research Program.  The lab also contains conference rooms, computer labs, storage spaces, amenities such as a café, and environments tailored for specific experimentation conditions.  There is also a pedestrian bridge to the adjacent Medical Center to connect with future development and parking.

UK President Lee T. Todd, Jr. said the BBSRB “represents the University of Kentucky’s commitment to becoming a top-20 public research university by solving some of Kentucky’s greatest problems through research. In the most literal sense this is a laboratory for new ideas and discoveries, and is part of a promise to improve Kentuckians’ quality of life.”

As a whole, the typical student center is inevitably awkward.  Because it must accommodate many uses on few floors, it can easily look like a low warehouse or shopping mall.  For this reason VSBA concentrated the bulk of the new Trabant University Center within the interior of the site, thereby maintaining the fabric of the existing neighborhood buildings at the perimeter of the block.  These charming buildings and little houses maintain the town’s historical aura while the bulky rear of the student center hides behind them.

A gallery-arcade runs through the heart of the student center, aligning with one of the campus’s dominant pedestrian routes.  Along the outside edge of the arcade is a kind of side-aisle — a zone where one can rest or sit to talk, eat and/or ogle; beyond is a vista of the street.  In contrast, the space on the other side of the arcade is very active with commercial-like signs proclaiming a variety of eating places, a bookstore, kiosks, and other services.  Above, a series of meeting rooms overlooks the gallery.  Reinforcing the gala effect of the gallery are banner-like signs that can be decorative or informational.  Decorative arches of low-intensity neon tube span the gallery and work to unify the contrasting sides of the space.  A secondary route runs east-west to connect a large multi-purpose room, study lounge, auto drop-off, and adjacent parking garage.

Trabant’s design acknowledges (without mimicry) the campus’s rich architectural history.  In spirit (but not literally) it’s Georgian — in its materials, rhythms, and classical allusions — but it’s true to our time and appropriate to its size and scale.  Just as the architects of the 1920s Georgian buildings in the historic campus center adapted the style to their time and purposes, so we’ve adapted it to ours.

Fay House is the original home of Radcliffe College and now the administrative building for the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.  It was built in 1807 and expanded both horizontally and vertically over the years.

Following an initial programming study and scoping analysis, VSBA embarked on a renovation to preserve the most important historic features and character of the building while:

• creating more efficient, functional workspaces
• assessing and addressing structural deficiencies
• improving life safety
• making the building more accessible, in compliance with current accessibility codes
• improving comfort and efficiency through new building systems
• improving the building envelope and addressing deferred maintenance throughout the building
• replacing windows

The Colonial/Federal Revival Sheerr Room was Radcliffe’s first auditorium.  A major goal of our renovation was to preserve its character while meeting the new audio/visual requirements.  This multi-use, reconfigurable space now features a large screen and projection system, video teleconferencing system, overhead speakers, and amplifier.

Fay House is LEED Gold certified; as of its completion, it’s the oldest LEED certified building in the United States.  Fay House powers down appliances as well as lights when the building is not in use, reducing power use and waste.  Occupancy and daylight sensors, as well personal lighting controls, allow adjustment of light per room and usage.  Also, renovations introduced daylight and views to working and meeting areas.