Celli-Flynn Brennan - Architects & Planners
New Wilmington, PA
The new campus center at Westminster College brings together a number of campus planning initiatives in one facility that reorganizes pedestrian circulation in the smaller of the college's two quadrangles, while creating a "living room" for the campus.
The college approached CFB with the idea to build an addition to the Walton Mayne Union and renovate Freeman Hall. CFB proposed the construction of a new building between Walton Mayne and Freeman that would enclose each of these 1950's buildings in new architecture and relate well to the adjacent 1892 Thompson Clark Hall. One synergistic campus center would result.
The design proposed a curving new facade along the northern side of the quadrangle. This facade provided a long wall to the quadrangle and enclosed a circulation path for the students coming from the library or Old Main on their way to the academic, science or music facilities to the west. By wrapping Walton Mayne and Freeman in the new architecture of the campus center, the college established an up-to-date image and provided paths crossing at key spots within the campus center.
"Meet and greet" opportunities abound in a center that is focused on an atrium and a curvilinear mall that differs from the many hard-edged buildings that make up the campus. A snack bar, ballroom, bookstore, mailroom, nightclub, meeting spaces, a movie theatre and the Center for Excellence in Teaching are all included and easily accessed from the central space. These "people places" are designed to provide interaction incorporated in a technology-rich environment that doubles as a teaching tool. A movie theatre, touch-screen information kiosks and cyber snack bar booths enrich the visual experience of the spaces. Four students gathered in a booth can use laptops to work on a statistics problem while eating. The social and learning environments are thereby merged.
The total facility approaches 76,000 GSF and gives the college a new look that is sympathetic with the context of the existing architecture of the nearby buildings, but sets a new trend for the future. Walton Mayne and Freeman Halls remain identifiable for historic reasons, but now communicate a new image.