On Saturday, Sept. 17, the University of Chicago will open its three-building, 394,000-sf Campus North Residential Commons that the college and its AEC partners are hoping can serve as a “front door” to the college.
The $150 million Commons, designed by Studio Gang Architects and built by Mortenson Construction, is situated on 195,480 sf at the north edge of campus. Its towers range from five to 15 stories tall, peaking at 164 feet. The towers have a total of 800 student beds within 252 single rooms and 193 double rooms that are organized into eight three-level “houses,” named after prominent members of the university’s community, including Dean John W. Boyer, who has led the college for the past 24 years.
“We designed an architecture that really feels like home for the students, but that simultaneously opens to and engages with the community,” Jeanne Gang, founding principal of Studio Gang Architects, told UChicagoNews.
The towers are connected by a second-floor common space. There are five music practices rooms and eight pianos; and two classrooms for campus-wide use. There is 23,603 sf of resident-only landscaped courtyards located above ground level. And a 48,791-sf green roof is set up to retain rainwater on site (the building is shooting for LEED Gold certification).
The top floor includes a multipurpose room, 14 group study spaces, and a 24-hour reading room. The first-floor area offers 12,000 sf of retail space for vendors Heritage Bicycles, Insomnia Cookies, TimBuk2 (which sells backpacks and messenger bags), and Dollop Coffee Co., whose shop is at the center of the building.
Other amenities include 118,150 sf of landscaped quadrangle, streetscape, and plaza. The university worked with the city to turn one street, Greenwood Avenue, into a pedestrian landscape connection linking the street on which the Commons sits with several athletic and arts centers on campus.
The 450-seat Frank and Laura Baker Dining Commons within the residential hall is organized so that students sit at tables whose names correspond to their residence “houses.” Image: Steve Hall ©Hedrick Blessing.
Within the Commons is the 28,000-sf Frank and Laura Baker Dining Commons, named after an alumnus, Frank Baker, who last year made a $7 million gift to the university to endow undergraduate scholarships and internships for lower-income students of outstanding promise. The dining room’s 450 seats are along tables designated for each of the Commons’ houses.
The building’s design lets in maximum natural light and fresh air into interior spaces. Each student’s residence comes equipped with automated controls to account for variable sun exposure as part of maintaining comfort.
The building’s external envelope consists of 1,034 white precast concrete panels (made from 110 different molds) hung on an aluminum curtain wall. And this building includes the first major application of a two-way radiant slab heating and cooling system in the Chicago region.
The other Building Team members on this design-build project were Magnussen Klemencic Associates (SE), dbHMS (MEP/fire protection engineer), David Mason & Associates (CE), Hanbury (associate architect), Hood Design Studio (landscape concept designer), Terry Guen Landscape Architects (landscape architect), Threshold Acoustics (acoustical designer), Lightswitch Architectural (lighting designer), Jensen Hughes (code consultant), Jenkins & Huntington (elevator consultant), and Transsolar (sustainability consultant).
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Manitoba Hydro Place, Tornado Tower among world's 'best tall buildings,' according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat last week announced the winners of its annual “Best Tall Building” awards for 2009, recognizing one outstanding tall building from each of four geographical regions: Americas, Asia & Australia, Europe, and Middle East & Africa. This year’s winners are: Manitoba Hydro Place, Winnipeg, Canada; Linked Hybrid, Beijing, China; The Broadgate Tower, London, UK; Tornado Tower, Doha, Qatar.
| Aug 11, 2010
CampusBrands Inc., NYLO Hotels team to launch student housing franchise brand
Which would you choose: the cramped quarters, thin mattresses, and crowded communal bathrooms of dormitory life or a new type of student housing with comfortable couches, a game room, fitness center, Wi-Fi in every room, flat-screen televisions and maybe even a theater?
| Aug 11, 2010
Harvard Law School Wood-Framed Houses
Cambridge, Mass.
A century ago, majestic Victorian homes lined Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, but few of these grande dames still survive. Harvard Law School owned three such beauties, which they used for office and research space. Unfortunately, the houses occupied prime real estate on which the school planned to build a new academic center. Rather than raze the historic wood-frame homes, the law school made it a priority to repurpose them.
| Aug 11, 2010
Gilbane, Whiting-Turner among nation's largest university contractors, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
A ranking of the Top 50 University Contractors based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit /giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Jacobs, Holder Construction top BD+C's ranking of the nation's 50 largest industrial building contractors
A ranking of the Top 50 Industrial Contractors based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
AASHE releases annual review of sustainability in higher education
The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) has announced the release of AASHE Digest 2008, which documents the continued rapid growth of campus sustainability in the U.S. and Canada. The 356-page report, available as a free download on the AASHE website, includes over 1,350 stories that appeared in the weekly AASHE Bulletin last year.
| Aug 11, 2010
AECOM, Arup, Gensler most active in commercial building design, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
A ranking of the Top 100 Commercial Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Perkins+Will master plans Vedanta University teaching hospital in India
Working together with the Anil Agarwal Foundation, Perkins+Will developed the master plan for the Medical Precinct of a new teaching hospital in a remote section of Puri, Orissa, India. The hospital is part of an ambitious plan to develop this rural area into a global center of education and healthcare that would be on par with Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford.
| Aug 11, 2010
Burt Hill, HOK top BD+C's ranking of the nation's 100 largest university design firms
A ranking of the Top 100 University Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
PCL Construction, HITT Contracting among nation's largest commercial building contractors, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
A ranking of the Top 50 Commercial Contractors based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants