Higher Education

The rich challenges presented by college and university campuses are as unique as they are complex. Designs must reflect a sensitive balance between building issues and those involved with a broader campus environment. Program resolution must incorporate not only the spaces within the structure, but also the spaces created by the structure. Site strategies, formal composition, and environmental sensitivity all must respond to and add to the context within which higher education takes place.

Both the design of a campus and the placement of a building within an existing academic environment require the understanding and incorporation of patterns of movement, connections to destinations, and linkages and axes. A campus must thoughtfully balance a sense of freedom with the necessities of security and carefully reinforce pedestrian access while solving the very real requirements of service.

Our involvement with academic design and planning spans both the history of our firm and across the United States. We have designed classroom buildings, meeting facilities, residential halls, dining facilities, student centers, arts centers, athletic centers, libraries, research and teaching laboratories, and chapels. We have worked within settings where a sympathetic response to the existing architectural character was of paramount importance as well as on campuses where the newest architectural expression was desired.

We have embraced technology in our process of design resolution, just as our educational clients have embraced its impact on teaching. The importance of computers in classrooms and libraries requires new factors in evaluating the design of the room and of the structure. Distance teaching and learning impact not only audio-visual criteria, but also resolution of appropriate lighting and acoustical designs. As scientific teaching environments rival the private sector in sophistication, safety becomes a more exacting parameter and engineering a more refined resolution. There is no better evidence of design fully realized from awareness for environmental concerns and carbon footprints than in a setting where others can learn from these commitments.