South Addition

William Sherman’s design of the south addition addresses the enormous need for faculty office space. In a school whose faculty has tripled since the building was constructed in 1970, an addition providing 26 new offices will solve many problems. Sherman’s faculty offices relate to the studios in a way that recalls the relationship of the pavilions to the Lawn. The south porches, as at Monticello, have an important climatic role. In the summer they act as chimneys, cooling themselves as air moves, and in the winter they will act as solaria, capturing light and warmth. The glass louvers filter sunlight into the offices and porches, with a potential for future energy production.

The new south design creates a setting for improved institutional, communal and personal relationships. Notice how the plans knit together relationships both horizontally and vertically, suggesting the School’s own interpretation of an Academical Village. Administrative offices for department chairs and conference space will overlook the heart of the School and the new Arts Grounds. On the fourth floor a technology bridge will serve as a meeting place between faculty and students in the area between faculty offices and design studios. This important space will house computers, scanners, and plotters for digital studios.

Sherman reveals how a building can mediate human experience and dynamic natural systems. Many spaces of the south addition expose the ordinary events of everyday life to an enriched perception of place and time. Conference and review rooms on the 2nd floor open up to outdoor classrooms and a teaching landscape. A Faculty Research Studio on the 3rd floor and a Review Room on the 4th floor are generous volumes constantly animated with changing light from the movement of the sun and the reversal of day and night.

Two very different spaces provide singular experiences in the daily life of the students. The existing stair on the south of the building will be enclosed, providing an enlarged landing between the 2nd and 3rd floors. This dim, interior space will mark the time with an inverted sundial, a sliver of light, measuring the hours and the seasons as a quiet place for a moment of reflection. In the 4th floor Review Room, the west wall will open to the expansive western view, creating a lantern effect at night that will be seen from central Grounds as well as University Avenue.

In his design Sherman strives for more than solutions for energy efficiency. He explores how an academic community can take optimal advantage of its own unique landscape. The layered strategy of the south wall will serve as an ongoing lab for developing technologies that faculty and students at the School will test as they emerge. These demonstration spaces for new energy-generating technologies will be the first of its kind at a top design program in the nation.