Penn Graduate School of Education
Project:
Client:
My role:
Software:
Duration:
Graduate School of Education
University of Pennsylvania
Project architect / design co-lead (Annum Architects)
Revit 360, Sketchup, AutoCAD, ProCore
Feb.‘21 - Sept. ‘22 (design to construction administration)
Background
The Graduate School of Education (GSE) sought a home that reflected its vision for “One GSE” - a lively community of educators housed under a single roof. They saw an opportunity to connect and expand two of their buildings at the university’s Social Sciences Quadrangle for a renewed and centralized presence on campus.
The Problem
After workshopping with stakeholders and user group representatives (university facilities, the Dean, faculty members, students, building operations), the architectural team honed in on three major questions →
These questions highlighted the top user needs that served as touchstones throughout the design process.
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“One GSE”
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Campus gateway
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Spontaneous interaction
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Accessibility
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Placemaking
1.
2.
3.
How can the building signal a campus gateway for pedestrians while being sensitive to the neighborhood context?
How can the exterior + interior of the expansion be organized to seamlessly bring two buildings together while negotiating the differences in floors and resolving accessibility issues?
How can we provide communal spaces that encourage spontaneous interaction between students and faculty without taking away precious classroom and office spaces?
The Big Picture
User need: "One GSE"
In partnership with the school, feasibility studies concluded that an expansion east and west of the existing buildings, along with a “connector” building in between, would achieve the additional area the school needed, with a budget within reach.
Existing
Expand
Connect
Inflect
Exterior Expression
User need: Campus gateway
The architectural gestures of the new exterior were finalized after multiple rounds of client + user group workshops. A subtle inflection of the building facade and the articulated envelope around the corner signal intentional moments at the building and campus entrance.
Interior Plan
User need: Spontaneous interaction
When studying the exterior facade, a corresponding design consideration was the desire to provide as many casual and easily accessible meeting spaces as possible for the GSE community and beyond, to address the school’s desire to encourage spontaneous interaction between students and faculty.
The Connector
User need: Placemaking
The Connector is also the landing space that orients visitors and reflects the Ed. school’s values of community, collaboration, inclusion, and integrity.
User need: Accessibility
At the heart of the new building is the Connector, a critical piece of the design that connects and negotiates level discrepancies between the existing buildings and courtyard. Various lobby configurations were studied to eliminate physical barriers that used to be an accessibility pain point.
Value Engineering
The school’s budget and academic calendar required the meticulous work of parsing out design elements that were non-negotiable vs. those that could be replaced with lower cost alternatives and faster procurement times. On the basis of the original design, rounds of iterations were studied through renderings and physical mock-ups to facilitate the value engineering process.
Final Result
The building opened for the 2023 fall semester and immediately the students and faculty welcomed the sense of gathering fostered in their new home.
Former GSE Dean Pam Grossman expressed that “there are so many spaces for people to get together and to run into each other and meet and talk and dream and plan. It fulfilled that dream of having a building that would bring our community together.”
