Title: Georgia Southern Interdisciplinary Academic Building
Location of Proejct: Statesboro, GA
Project Completion Date: Nov 2018
Firm Name: HOK, Inc.

Short Description: The University’s aspiration was to create its first multidisciplinary academic building to inspire innovation and encourage collaboration across numerous departments and disciplines. Conceived as a series of interlacing spatial moments, the strategy organized pedestrian flow through a centralized communicating heart, linking the departments to the campus spine. Organizing the building in this manner allowed for opportunistic ‘soft program’ that elevates the aspiration to reality with a variety of collaborative collision spaces and classrooms organized within the buildings heart. These moments serve as conduits for social overlap, connection and instruction, as professors extend the teaching environment to showcase student’s creativity.

Architect's Statement: Balancing a very modest budget, the design team knit client goals with strategies that were equally aspirational and purposeful. Every decision in the building was carefully weighed for its benefit to the initial ambition, its impact and cost. Central to the University’s mission is a dedication to excellence in teaching, by extending the learning environment beyond the classroom, and uniquely to this building, creating a multidisciplinary hub. The challenge and solution to that desire was the catalyst for our earliest parti diagrams. It set the stage for our approach, achieving the university’s vision while elevating ‘soft program’ to an otherwise uninspiring classroom program. In support of that goal,

• Interweaved an active 3-story ‘heart’ celebrating pedestrian flow inside and out, without the costly atrium definition
• We made key code decisions to maintain an unprotected, highly celebrated structure
• We embraced fully an authentic celebration of craft, material and making by elevating material solutions that showcased the inherent beauty of polished concrete, exposed ceilings, systems, wood and metal.
• Minimized infrastructure cost through strategic planning
• Knit pinup and gallery spaces into public ways, showcasing work across disciplines
• Promoted visual connectivity within departments.

The diverse programs housed in this building includes interior design, fashion, history, food science and foreign language departments. Organizing these programs within our approach created the organic innovation hub, showcasing student creativity and fostering the partnerships the university aspired too. Lastly, it needed to serve the occupants in a more pragmatic way – expanding educational experience and improving student success.

A traditionally Southern Campus, this institution has a strong connection to its history. The Pedestrium, a celebratory feature of the university, is the connecting artery that links the campus community. Conceptually the building communicating ‘heart’ was an embrace of the pedestrian flow and connectivity to the circulatory system. A powerful campus attribute, the flow of university traffic from the Pedestrium, also informed an embracing front porch. This pedestrian porte-corchere serves many purposes, it acts as a historical reference to Southern Vernacular front porches infused with social tradition. But it is also an equally practical embrace of pedestrian realm that is so important to this campus. Lastly, it extends the classroom into the public realm where professors host informal lessons and activities. Nestled into the first floor entry is a Public History Gallery, situated for maximum exposure to the larger campus. Rotating installations entice the larger campus inside while activating building connection within. The exterior materials stay comfortably within the campus palette and vernacular, while pushing the limits for new and expressive responses to their use. A three story, brick corbel wall hints at some of the exciting creative work inside. Solar and sustainable analysis of the facade informed many of our responses. Examples like celebrating overhangs and an exterior metal scrim, both of which provide shade and thermal comfort to the interior, through a dynamic marriage of function, beauty and performance. Even the exposed structure will one day support photovoltaic panels to offset the building’s carbon footprint.