With the mission of bringing students into the business community, the project had dual goals of supporting academic programs and fostering connections among students, faculty, and local leaders. The design team worked carefully with the University stakeholders, including Deans, faculty, campus administration, student-support staff, and the state to meet these goals. The design called for a flexible, efficient building; every space in the building needed to host multiple programs and activities.

Preserving and Connecting Open Space

Located outside of the existing academic core, the building connects existing student pedestrian routes, which drove the entrance locations and overall site design. Chamfered brick corners draw visual interest and traffic to the building entrances. Through creative siting and massing, the design improved upon the school’s initial concept by opening up part of the landscape to connect to a nearby quad and preserve a grove of mature trees. 

The floor plans stack like-sized classrooms and offices for structural efficiency while the two-story auditorium and active Community Room occupy a prominent place at the corner, signaling the presence of the School of Business at this campus crossroads location and making community events visible from both streets. 

This inviting street presence is amplified by the auditorium volume directly above on the second and third floors, with its distinctive fluted window articulation and metal rainscreen façade. Inside, an efficient double-loaded corridor is enlivened by open student study areas that bring natural light deep into the floor plans. 

Fulfilling the Academic Program and Mission 

The School of Business accelerates opportunity for students – many being first generation college students – by fostering a committed community of local business leaders, alumni, faculty, and students. The team worked carefully with the University to mix classrooms, informal student spaces, breakout rooms, and faculty and staff offices on every floor to bring together the community throughout the whole building. The auditorium, case-study classroom, Bloomberg room, and market-research suite are designed and equipped for specific academic needs, as well as the general classrooms, which also rely on flexible furniture layouts and plug-and-play tech for maximum pedagogical flexibility. 

Beyond the formal teaching spaces, there are plenty of spaces to meet, study, and socialize in transparent team rooms and small nooks carved out of the corridors on each level. Faculty and staff suites are open to the main circulation routes with natural light inviting students in. Balancing plan efficiency with “found” spaces for informal interaction drove much of the design.

Energy Goals

The School of Business building is fossil-fuel-free and generates enough energy to meet all of its operational needs. It is the first public state-built net-zero-energy building on campus. Smart planning led to a compact building design with a reasonable amount of glazing to keep heating and cooling loads down, while daylighting is abundant but shielded to minimize glare. The energy goals are met with high-performance mechanical systems, a tight, well insulated envelope, a geothermal wellfield, and a connection to a third party solar array. No mature trees needed to be sacrificed to the wellfield, thanks to the early site analysis that informed the building positioning, massing, and open-space planning.

Through an integrated planning process in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the design team showed faculty and staff how their specialized learning spaces could be highly flexible, defined by design rather than by equipment. The value of coming together to learn and collaborate is embodied in the design, and became more evident after pandemic isolation.  The new School of Business building was opened to the student body and broader campus in the fall of 2023.