Carl H. Lindner College of Business

Project Details

Project Description

FROM THE ARCHITECTS:

Introduction
The design for the Carl H. Lindner College of Business is based on the ambition to create a learning environment which encourages interaction, accommodates future change, and enhances occupants’ well-being. Moreover, the design resonates with and reinforces the University of Cincinnati’s masterplan, and aims to create a central meeting place and an open and inviting hub on campus–for students, faculty, and visitors alike.

Emphasizing Context
The new facility for the College of Business is located at the heart of UC’s West Campus. Situated within a campus featuring numerous iconic buildings, the College of Business immediately borders a new transit hub and multi-story parking structure to the north, the Campus Green to the east, the campus’ pedestrian thoroughfare and new plaza to the south, and the Langsam Library to the west.

The College of Business is specifically designed to serve as a functional and visual connection within this context: the building reaffirms the campus as an active pedestrian precinct which fosters human interaction, providing a vibrant hub at the heart of the campus.

Invoking the Campus Green’s landscaped mounds and crisscrossing pedestrian paths, the building’s ground floor is stepped to meet different topographic conditions, while its green roofscapes–visible from various vantage points–are sloped in relation to varying heights of adjacent existing structures, and carved along lines that extend the surrounding pedestrian paths. Furthermore, the four-story building features several covered and open-air atria at various levels, which provide indoor-outdoor transitions that reflect the building’s overall relation to the surrounding site.

The building’s two entries are oriented towards the new plaza and pedestrian thoroughfare to the south, and towards the new transit hub to the north. The ground floor therefore becomes a new indoor gathering space on campus.

Encouraging Interaction
Interactions among students, between faculty and students, and with Cincinnati’s business community are all supported by the building’s programming and space-planning.

The ground floor is a socially inclusive space which encourages people to feel welcome, linger, and interact. An entirely transparent ground floor features the building’s main public functions: the café, two auditoria, the Lindner Legacy area, and interview rooms are all connected to a large, light-filled atrium at the heart of the building, welcoming students, faculty, and visitors alike.

The lecture hall and the auditorium act as anchor points in the building, and can be used for a variety of functions by the College of Business, the entire University of Cincinnati, as well as the general public. A generous seating-staircase, lobby furnishings, and the indoor/outdoor café accommodate meet ups, informal study, and people-watching. The ground floor is activated by people congregating before and after lectures and classes, or traversing the building to and from the transit hub. The three-story high atrium is lined by long desks where students can study and feel part of the buzz below.

The second, third and fourth floors are programmed to accommodate both students and faculty, and designed to encourage their interaction. At each floor, faculty offices and classrooms are clustered to the north and south respectively, while a central spine contains all conference rooms, meeting rooms, ‘break-out’ space, and niches to serve both students and faculty. Simulating trends in contemporary workplaces, the spine facilitates various kinds of collaboration and work/study space in an open, inclusive environment.

The south-facing classrooms–in use day and night–create an activated façade oriented towards the plaza and pedestrian thoroughfare beyond. The floor-to-ceiling façade juxtaposes opaque and transparent panels in a pattern that not only creates a distinctive envelope for the building, but changes character at different times of the day and from different distances and approaches: revealing activity within the building to passersby.

Enhancing Wellbeing
The design targets LEED v4 Gold Certification, and prioritizes sustainable strategies that will minimize environmental impact while simultaneously maximizing human comfort and wellbeing – indoors and out. Henning Larsen’s Architects and sustainability specialists collaborate with the entire project team in order to integrate optimized energy performance, thermal comfort, and daylight conditions.

Henning Larsen Architects’ analyses of the local microclimate, including wind, sun, and thermal simulations, informs the orientation of the building and surrounding landscape. The distribution of the building’s volumes creates small local pockets of sunny and sheltered outdoor spaces.

Accommodating Change
The Carl H. Lindner College of Business is designed as a flexible building that can accommodate various pedagogies, increased occupancies, and transition from closed to open offices.

Classrooms are designed to accommodate different kinds of instruction: generous floor areas, height-adjustable furnishings, and audio-visual capacity allow for traditional front-facing lectures as well as group work and activated learning. The auditoria on the ground floor similarly accommodate for different types of pedagogy and program: the flat floor in the lecture hall allows for multiple use and seating configurations, while the tiered platforms and furniture in the auditorium can facilitate traditional lectures and group work simultaneously.