A new 61,000-sf, $29.5 million Murchie Science Building (MSB) addition has completed on the University of Michigan-Flint campus. The facility was designed to respond to the university’s dramatically growing STEM program and support the College of Innovation and Technology while also providing a new gateway building to the school’s entire student body.
The MSB is organized to support immersive learning on each of its four floors. Three programatic “bars” connect and run parallel to the existing linear structure supporting varied learning and collaborative experiences. A central interaction and collaborative bar brings together the two flanking bars of experiential learning and accessible faculty. At the highly visible east gateway end of the addition each bar cantilevers out over the landscape to different degrees with the central bar increasing in height. An all glass lobby floats below the cantilevered architecture to provide a highly visible point of arrival.
The facility also includes:
— two-story high collaborative spaces visible on all floors at the west end of the addition that promote vertical connectivity and visibility before floors
— classroom and lab spaces organized in a contiguous bar that provide flexibility for future room configuration and alternate pedagogies
— a main ground floor interior circulation system that integrates an existing east-west campus pathway that will increase exposure and promote STEM programs to students passing through the building
— a system of protected pathways, locking doors, and the strategic use of opaque solid walls that provide a secure-in-place strategy for all occupants of the building.
The layered cantilevered forms of the addition integrate with and advance the existing linear architecture to create an integrated gateway that is highly visible point of entry and arrival into the university.
Related Stories
University Buildings | May 30, 2015
Texas senate approves $3 billion in bonds for university construction
For the first time in nearly a decade, Texas universities could soon have some state money for construction.
University Buildings | May 19, 2015
Special Report: How your firm can help struggling colleges and universities meet their building project goals
Building Teams that want to succeed in the higher education market have to help their clients find new funding sources, control costs, and provide the maximum value for every dollar.
University Buildings | May 19, 2015
Renovate or build new: How to resolve the eternal question
With capital budgets strained, renovation may be an increasingly attractive money-saving option for many college and universities.
University Buildings | May 19, 2015
KU Jayhawks take a gander at a P3 development
The P3 concept is getting a tryout at the University of Kansas, where state funding for construction has fallen from 20% of project costs to about 11% over the last 10 years.
University Buildings | May 5, 2015
Where the university students are (or will be)
SmithGroupJJR's Alexa Bush discusses changing demographics and the search for out-of-state students at public universities.
BIM and Information Technology | Apr 9, 2015
How one team solved a tricky daylighting problem with BIM/VDC tools, iterative design
SRG Partnership's Scott Mooney describes how Grasshopper, Diva, Rhino, and 3D printing were utilized to optimize a daylighting scheme at Oregon State University's new academic building.
Sponsored | University Buildings | Apr 8, 2015
Student Housing: The fight against mold starts in the bathroom
University Buildings | Apr 8, 2015
The competitive advantage of urban higher-ed institutions
In the coming years, urban colleges and universities will outperform their non-urban peers, bolstered by the 77 million Millennials who prefer to live in dense, diverse, and socially rich environments, writes SmithGroupJJR's Michael Johnson.
University Buildings | Mar 18, 2015
Academic incubators: Garage innovation meets higher education
Gensler's Jill Goebel and Christine Durman discuss the role of design in academic incubators, and why many universities are building them to foster student growth.
Retail Centers | Mar 10, 2015
Retrofit projects give dying malls new purpose
Approximately one-third of the country’s 1,200 enclosed malls are dead or dying. The good news is that a sizable portion of that building stock is being repurposed.