Title: The Citadel - Bastin Hall School of Business
Location of Proejct: Charleston, SC
Project Completion Date: January, 2021
Firm Name: Liollio Architecture

Short Description: This three-story 44,000 SF facility modernizes business education to prepare cadets to become leaders in the business community. The program includes a business commons for group projects, Bloomberg Financial Services Lab, Innovation Lab, mock interview room, sales classrooms, break out rooms, flat flexible classrooms, tiered classrooms and faculty offices. The design is sited to create a new quad on campus and become a new public face to the City of Charleston. Honoring the tradition of The Citadel and respecting the architectural history, the design incorporates modern characteristics showing the institutions transition into the 21st Century with optimism for the future.

Architect's Statement: This three-story, 44,000 SF, $19.8 million new School of Business modernizes the business education program of this military college to prepare cadets to become leaders in the business community. The program includes a business commons for collaborative group projects, a Bloomberg Financial Services Lab, Innovation Lab, mock interview rooms, sales classrooms and break out rooms, in addition to flat, flexible classrooms, tiered classrooms and faculty offices.

The overarching exterior design goal was to create an aesthetic that honors and respects the traditional Spanish Moorish architectural style of the campus, but with modern materials and details that symbolize the evolution of the institution with an optimism for the future. Interior spaces are designed to provide a variety of learning environments that support today’s students, promoting collaboration and active learning and common spaces for chance encounters and productive collisions among students, faculty, and the business community.

As the first new academic building on campus in over 40 years and situated along the edge of campus in an urban setting, the design is sited to create a new quad of The Citadel campus and becomes a new public face to the City of Charleston. The entry plaza to the south is framed by a new campus archway to welcome visitors to campus. The east façade along the streetscape is set back 30’ to respect the scale of the residential neighborhood across the street and provide public green space that also softens the edge of campus. The commons open to the west to connect to the future quad envisioned in the campus master plan and the north plaza provides a more private gathering place for cadets to gather for outdoor learning and fellowship.

The campus context was studied to identify key architectural components traditional to campus, including crenellated parapets, vertical punched openings, turrets, and archways. These elements are incorporated in unique and new ways to unify with the campus and embrace the institution’s evolution. The crenellations are exaggerated in height, the turrets become towers that anchor the four corners of the design with a continuous vertical slot and simple punched openings. The traditional campus arch inspired the primary expression of the north and south elevation, with a large custom metal screen wall to provide solar shading in front of the expansive curtainwall to maximize natural light. The screen wall perforations are formed out of a series of custom designed arch shaped cutouts that strengthen the reference to architectural history.

The interior is anchored by vestibules through the arch way on the north and south with a promenade that bleeds into the core of the facility in the Business Commons with a round stock exchange ticker that provides real time display of the stock market. The classrooms and faculty offices are spread throughout all 3 floors of the facility to encourage interaction between faculty and students, and the third-floor design provides a terrace to connect to the future quad with views to the Ashley River on the campus edge.

It's been over four decades since The Citadel has built an academic building on campus. This new three-story facility on The Citadel's campus has modernized the business education program to prepare cadets to become leaders in the business community. The design is sited to create a new quad of the campus and becomes a new public face to the city - anchoring a new area of expansion beyond the traditional campus boundaries. Honoring the tradition of the College and respecting the architectural character, the design incorporates modern characteristics showing the institution's transition with optimism for the future.