Marshall Family Performing Arts Center, Addison, Texas, USA | 2016

Architects: WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism
Associate Architects: Page Milton Powell
Client: Greenhill School
General Contractor: Andres Construction Services
Civil Engineer/Landscape Architects: Pacheco Koch
Photographers: Albert Vecerka

The 117,000-square-foot Kent State Center for Architecture and Environmental Design establishes an innovative center for the design disciplines and a beacon signalling Kent State’s creative, research-based programs. The “Design Loft” was the winner of an international competition and recently attained LEED Platinum certification.

A continuous gallery anchors the building’s main public level and opens up to the University’s new esplanade, a pedestrian walkway that establishes a connection between the University and the City as part of a joint redevelopment initiative. The ascending sequence of ground floor spaces support a broad range of activities including a café, gallery, a 200-seat multi-purpose lecture room, classrooms, library, and related reading areas. A wide, amphitheatre-style stair adjacent to the cafe creates opportunities for spontaneous discussion and provides a link between the public space located on the ground floor and the ascending loft of studios.

The building exemplifies an integrated approach to sustainability that maximizes passive opportunities including daylighting and natural ventilation, employs efficient strategies for building and landscape systems, and utilizes more than 25% recycled content in building materials. Atop the building, an 8,400-square- foot green roof minimizes the heat island effect and captures excess rainwater which is reused as graywater within the buildings plumbing fixtures. High efficiency low-E coated glass, super insulated masonry walls, and 100 geothermal wells help to moderate the building’s mechanical systems, resulting in energy performance of over 45% better than industry standard. As a model for sustainable design for the University and the city, the Design Loft illustrates the key role of architecture and design in envisioning a sustainable future.

An expansive studio loft forms the heart of the program. Designed to maximize flexibility, it accommodates a growing program and evolves to meet the educational needs of the architecture and design fields. The tiered arrangement of studios informs the massing of the building, which bridges the institutional and residential scales of its neighbours. A series of critique rooms ascend at the south side of the studios, encouraging dialogue between beginning and advanced studios and across the design disciplines. Continuous sightlines throughout the studio unite spaces of creation and critique, encourage interdisciplinary discourse, and enhance the sense of peripheral vision for students and faculty. A series of stairs activate both the north and south façades of the building and provide continuous circulation that connects all the studio levels. The south-facing fire stair cantilevers from the face of the building, providing expansive views of the campus. The north façade of the building features large glazed areas of curtain wall that bring northern light into the studio spaces and provide panoramic views toward the campus and City. An ascending sequence of bay windows accommodate lounge areas that cantilever over the esplanade. The colour and texture of the iron-spot brick façade and custom brick fins, fired in a bee-hive kiln by the local Belden Brick Company, relate to the materials of the surrounding campus and town.

Sited strategically at a hinge between the campus and City, the Design Loft forms a new hub that forges connections between Kent State University and the revitalized downtown Kent.