In September 2012, students at the University of Rhode Island will have a new place to live. The university plans to tear down its Terrace Apartments that house 90 people and replace the aging buildings with a 429-bed, $42 million residence hall. Providence-based Lerner Ladds + Bartels is leading the design on the project, which will be paid for by students.
Lerner Ladds + Bartels architect and firm partner Christian Ladds recently took some time to discuss the project with Providence Business News.
PBN: Can you tell us a little about the Hillside Residence Hall project?
LADDS: The University of Rhode Island has seen much expansion over its 100-year history. In an effort to support its ever-growing student population, the university enlisted the services of our firm, Lerner Ladds + Bartels, to increase its on-campus housing options. Working in tandem with Mackey Mitchell Architects of St. Louis, we are preparing bid documents for Phase I of the Hillside Residence Hall complex, which includes 429 beds, multipurpose spaces, offices of residential life, and classrooms to support both living and learning.
Acting as a gateway to the University’s Hillside District, this project, targeting LEED Silver certification, aims to engage students through the creation of dynamic social spaces designed to promote student interaction on both an academic and recreational level.
In addition to new building construction, a new roadway with associated landscape and walkway revisions are also part of the project, providing better vehicular and pedestrian connectivity and gaining universal access between the residential, social and academic areas of campus.
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PBN: How will the building’s design fit into the larger campus?
LADDS: In the larger campus context, the site is located at the southern tip of the residential district, between the academic district and the fraternities.
The building orientation complements the adjacent residence halls, which are organized parallel to the contours of the sloping campus hillside. The project sits at the intersection of campus and town organizational grids that misalign by 15 degrees. These cross alignments were incorporated into the design, resulting in some compelling geometries and cantilevers – a challenge that our structural engineer Odeh Engineers met head on.
Through the encouragement of Thomas Frisbie-Fulton, director of Capital Planning and Design at URI, and Robert Weygand, vice president of administration, we focused on pedestrian interconnectivity as we worked with our site consultants, Carol R. Johnson Associates and Pare Corp., to maintain and enhance cross-campus ties.
A number of building through-passages at ground level allow for integration of existing pedestrian pathways to other areas of the campus. We also paid careful attention to establishing universally accessible pathways through the site – a difficult task given the project’s location on a hillside.
PBN: What’s unique about designing such a large dorm? Is the dorm even considered large?
LADDS: This building could be considered a fairly large residence hall, so one of the unique challenges of the project was to address the human scale. Through careful attention to massing and detailing, we’re able to break down the visual mass of such a substantial building. Two residential wings are joined by a transparent bridge connector in an “H” configuration and define two landscaped courtyards.
The design further breaks down the visual mass of the wings into smaller segments, or “houses,” through the use of exterior glass curtain wall that encodes the common spaces at the bridge connection and lounge areas. The six-story height is seemingly reduced by distinguishing a base, middle and top and effectively creating a more residential scale.
The exterior articulation of building segments is transposed onto the interior plan organization of small freshmen and sophomore clusters within the larger complex; each cluster having related bathrooms and a small lounge space that can be used for studying or socializing. This configuration promotes a sense of identity and community within the complex and allows for the possibility of freshmen to “move up” as a group of sophomores within the same building, reinforcing the social fabric of Hillside Hall within the residential district.
PBN: I understand there is an emphasis on building a green dorm. Can you tell us a little about that?
LADDS: We took a holistic approach to sustainability and tried capturing the most effective and economical methods to achieve a green building. We are integrating sun shading, natural ventilation, green roofing, radiant heating, solar domestic hot water heating, recycled content in building materials, and light dimming systems into the project.
We are capturing rainwater from roofs and paved areas to feed rain gardens, which are not only instructional and visually pleasing, but function to retain and improve the quality of the water falling and flowing onto the site.
Our mechanical engineers, Creative Environment, have been very effective in helping us create an energy model that supports our aim at LEED Silver certification. The LEED rating system is an established method of measuring the sustainability of a project and by targeting LEED Silver, we’ll ensure that URI receives an energy efficient and environmentally responsible building.
PBN: Is this the first residence hall project for Lerner Ladds + Bartels?
LADDS: Over the years, we have completed residence hall projects totaling more than 2,300 beds, so this is not the first, nor the largest residence hall project we have undertaken. However, Hillside Hall is the largest entirely new building and site residence hall project that we have been commissioned to design, which makes it a very exciting milestone for our office. We feel very fortunate to be working with an excellent team of consultants, and a very creative and proactive group at the URI Department of Housing and Residential Life led by Chip Yensan and the Capital Projects Office led by Paul DePace. This team approach ensures that this project is at the forefront of contemporary residence hall design.
