Studio Gang to Design UC Dorm/Dining Complex (original) (raw)

Architecture Mon Jul 29 2013

"Starchitect" Jeanne Gang's Studio Gang Architects has been chosen to design a major new facility on the north end of the University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park. The complex will be a residence hall and dining commons planned around the university's house system, which emphasizes building community.

The residence hall will house about 800 undergraduates in eight houses, with first year through fourth year students living together. Faculty members and advanced graduate students will live with the undergrads as resident staff. Each house will be structured around a three-story lounge for meetings, study and relaxation. The dining commons will also be organized by house so members of each community can eat with friends.

View of the commons; rendering by Studio Gang, courtesy University of Chicago.

The complex will be built at the corner of 55th Street and University Avenue, where Pierce Tower now stands. Studio Gang will collaborate with Mortenson Construction; the project is expected to be completed in time for the 2016 academic year. The team will pursue LEED Gold certification, which recognizes design efficiency and sustainability.

The UC campus has an interesting architectural profile. The Studio Gang project will join other contemporary structures such as the Helmut Jahn library, a new arts center designed by Tod Williams and Billy Tsien, the business school by Rafael Viñoly, and modernist classics by Eero Saarinen and Mies van der Rohe. The oldest part of the campus is built around the quadrangle of traditional collegiate Gothic buildings.

Studio Gang's most visible local project is Aqua, an 82-story mixed-use residential tower on Columbus Drive in Lakeshore East with its distinctive "wavy" facade. The firm is also designing the new Writers Theatre in Glencoe. Studio Gang, its work and approach were featured in a recent exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago titled Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects. That exhibit closed in February.

For more information and a slideshow of the Studio Gang renderings, see the university's announcement of this landmark project.