Ursinus College, New Residence Hall

Collegeville, Pennsylvania

Firm

WRT

Client

Ursinus College

Area

57,970 sq.ft.

Total Cost

$10,400,000

Completion Date

08/2007

This new residence hall is adjacent to Ursinus College’s academic core. It is the second element in a phased master plan to develop a 650-person residential village for this highly ranked liberal-arts school.
The college, in striving to foster personalized learning relationships among students, faculty, staff and the greater community, has long housed students in an eclectic mix of turn-of-the-century homes that line the Main Street of its small-town setting. To capture similar residential qualities, the design of the new building fractures the 187-bed program into smaller “neighborhoods” of about 20 residents, each with dedicated study and other shared facilities. Pairs of neighborhoods then are knitted together at larger recreational lounges, which are open to the building’s central circulation core. The building also includes an apartment for a faculty adviser in residence, and spaces intended to draw seminar-type teaching out of traditional classroom settings and into the more relaxed environment of the residential village.
On the building’s exterior, bump-out elements are expressed as a series of townhouse facades, which will frame courtyards as future phases of the village are developed.