Henning Larsen has been named as the designer of the new 376,700-sf campus building for Management Center Innsbruck (MCI) after a two-stage competition and dialogue process. The project is located on the edge of the Innsbruck city center.
The new building will create a unified campus for MCI for the first time in the school’s history. Bordered by the city to the south and east and by the historical Hofgarten to the north and west (and the Alps all around), the building is designed to have no back or front. Multi-story entries are carved into each facade to break the scale of the building in relation to its surroundings. These pockets are planted with gardens to match the identity of their neighbor. For example, the mountain-facing north entry features alpine flowers while the southern city-facing entry is an urban terrace.
Classrooms and lecture halls populate the outer edge of the ground level, framing a fluid interior space with a large community stair in the center that links the three levels of learning spaces and also serves as a community space itself. Learning floors are designed to be open and flexible, with nearly as much unprogrammed space for students to study, socialize, and rest as there is actual classroom space.
The building’s upper floors are divided in two sections, one containing offices for MCI faculty, administration, and students, and the other containing laboratories and research spaces. The design is dense, with four cores that serve not just as vertical circulation, but also as social hubs within the large floorplates.
Construction on the facility is expected to start in fall 2023 with move-in expected for early 2025.
Related Stories
| Oct 13, 2010
Campus building gives students a taste of the business world
William R. Hough Hall is the new home of the Warrington College of Business Administration at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The $17.6 million, 70,000-sf building gives students access to the latest technology, including a lab that simulates the stock exchange.
| Oct 13, 2010
Science building supports enrollment increases
The new Kluge-Moses Science Building at Piedmont Virginia Community College, in Charlottesville, is part of a campus update designed and managed by the Lukmire Partnership. The 34,000-sf building is designed to be both a focal point of the college and a recruitment mechanism to get more students enrolling in healthcare programs.
| Oct 13, 2010
Residences bring students, faculty together in the Middle East
A new residence complex is in design for United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain, UAE, near Abu Dhabi. Plans for the 120-acre mixed-use development include 710 clustered townhomes and apartments for students and faculty and common areas for community activities.
| Oct 13, 2010
New health center to focus on education and awareness
Construction is getting pumped up at the new Anschutz Health and Wellness Center at the University of Colorado, Denver. The four-story, 94,000-sf building will focus on healthy lifestyles and disease prevention.
| Oct 13, 2010
Community college plans new campus building
Construction is moving along on Hudson County Community College’s North Hudson Campus Center in Union City, N.J. The seven-story, 92,000-sf building will be the first higher education facility in the city.
| Oct 12, 2010
University of Toledo, Memorial Field House
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Memorial Field House, once the lovely Collegiate Gothic (ca. 1933) centerpiece (along with neighboring University Hall) of the University of Toledo campus, took its share of abuse after a new athletic arena made it redundant, in 1976. The ultimate insult occurred when the ROTC used it as a paintball venue.
| Oct 12, 2010
Owen Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Officials at Michigan State University’s East Lansing Campus were concerned that Owen Hall, a mid-20th-century residence facility, was no longer attracting much interest from its target audience, graduate and international students.
| Oct 12, 2010
Cell and Genome Sciences Building, Farmington, Conn.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Administrators at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington didn’t think much of the 1970s building they planned to turn into the school’s Cell and Genome Sciences Building. It’s not that the former toxicology research facility was in such terrible shape, but the 117,800-sf structure had almost no windows and its interior was dark and chopped up.
| Oct 12, 2010
Full Steam Ahead for Sustainable Power Plant
An innovative restoration turns a historic but inoperable coal-burning steam plant into a modern, energy-efficient marvel at Duke University.
| Sep 16, 2010
Green recreation/wellness center targets physical, environmental health
The 151,000-sf recreation and wellness center at California State University’s Sacramento campus, called the WELL (for “wellness, education, leisure, lifestyle”), has a fitness center, café, indoor track, gymnasium, racquetball courts, educational and counseling space, the largest rock climbing wall in the CSU system.
