Related Projects
Area
4 city blocks
3,000 beds
In the Media
Building Type Studies, Architectural Record
Facility Focus, College Planning & Management
Design Profile, Context Magazine
Few Touches Transform Penn Dorms, Philadelphia Inquirer
Dormitories are Restored to Their Modernist Roots, Chronicle of Higher Education
Our approach creates a distinct identity for each building with different colors to reduce their monolithic presence.
An aggressive program of renovation was established with different phases completed over successive summers, extending to the low-rises.
A new entry sequence creates a welcoming communal character with an exterior porch that extends to the main campus circulation.
Leaking ‘motel’ glass and metal panels are replaced with energy-efficient windows creating a mosaic of shapes that express the building’s use and habitation.
To be revived as college houses, the three 27-story high-rises required major infrastructure improvements, new spaces, and a fresh image.
Hamilton Village
University of Pennsylvania
In the 1960’s the University of Pennsylvania developed a new undergraduate housing complex of three high-rise and three low-rise dormitories clustered at the western edge of the urban campus. The retail and public life at the borders of the institution and the community had not flourished over several decades, so the University initiated a masterplan to revive and redevelop the area with the objective of recreating a vibrant urban precinct.
The University’s broad plan for Hamilton Village suggested new growth through building political and community relationships, investing in infrastructure, developing new facilities and renewing the adjacent campus buildings and landscape. Key to the success of the plan is the phased transformation of the three high-rise dormitories and a new conception of the spaces between them, followed by successive renovations of the low-rises.