BIG is selected to design the new heart of the Johns Hopkins University Campus
06/11/2020.
[Baltimore - Maryland] USA
metalocus, MARÍA ANASTIDAS
metalocus, MARÍA ANASTIDAS
BIG has been selected as the designer of the new Student Center for Johns Hopkins University; result of international design competition. More than 1,200 students, faculty, staff, and alumni responded to a June survey, inviting evaluation of the four design finalists.
BIG's proposal for the Hopkins Student Center, or "The Village", is a project characterized by large openings, connections to the surrounding outdoor spaces, abundance of natural light, built-in features that support the university's sustainability goals.
BIG's proposal for the Hopkins Student Center, or "The Village", is a project characterized by large openings, connections to the surrounding outdoor spaces, abundance of natural light, built-in features that support the university's sustainability goals.
Student Center for Johns Hopkins University by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. Rendering by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group
Student Center for Johns Hopkins University by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. Rendering by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group
Student Center for Johns Hopkins University by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. Rendering by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group
Student Center for Johns Hopkins University by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. Rendering by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group
Student Center for Johns Hopkins University by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. Rendering by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group
Student Center for Johns Hopkins University by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. Rendering by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group
Student Center for Johns Hopkins University by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. Rendering by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group
The approximately 14,000 square meter (150000 sqf) building will include spaces for relaxation and socialization, creative and performing arts spaces, student resources and support services, lounges, a digital media center, a performance space with seating for 200 people, and a dynamic dining hall that connects directly onto a new plaza along Charles Street. The facility will satisfy the long-acknowledged need for a true non-academic gathering spot on the university’s Homewood campus in Baltimore, Maryland.
“Having taught at a number of world-renowned universities on the East Coast, it is an incredible honor to have been chosen to create the framework for the life of the Johns Hopkins students. We have attempted to imagine and design the Campus Center like a village condensed from a plethora of different spaces and pavilions for the greatest possible diversity of activities, interests and sub-cultures.”
Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group.
Located just south of the iconic open space on the Johns Hopkins campus known as “The Beach” at the intersection of 33rd and Charles Streets, the facility will foster greater connectivity between the campus and the neighboring Charles Village community by creating a prominent, welcoming new entry point at 33rd Street. It will turn an area of the campus into a dynamic hub at the crossroads of student activity. As a natural gateway, the area will connect Charles Village and more than 3,500 Hopkins students who live in the neighborhood, to the heart of the Homewood campus.
The Village is conceived as a central living room surrounded by a collection of spaces tailored to the needs of the Hopkins community. The building negotiates the sloping grade of the site to allow direct entry from all four levels of the building, while maintaining a friendly human scale and providing several accessible routes across the site. Arriving on Charles Street, students and visitors are greeted by an open building façade with dining areas spilling out onto a sun-splashed plaza.
The entrance of The Village opens into a cascading interior landscape of dining, performance, lounging, and socializing. The mass timber structure provides a warm and acoustically comfortable environment as light filters in between the photovoltaic roof panels—features that help to meet the university’s larger sustainability goals.
"Often the greatest ideas and breakthroughs occur away from the desk, when minds have a chance to wander, to play, to riff with others. The new Hopkins Student Center is designed to provoke the sometimes-necessary distractions that complement rigorous academic life - a place for a future generation of Salks, Curies, and Cricks to unlock their next great discovery."
Leon Rost, Partner, BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group.
An indoor landscape—as vast as the Beach next door—is comprised of a cluster of flexible spaces, which open out on to four rejuvenated public spaces: an events-focused commons, the shaded paths of the Grove, an entry plaza at 33rd street, and a new food market and plaza to the south. The signature red brick paths of Homewood campus seamlessly flow through the building.
The Village transforms the landscape around the building to create outdoor spaces for student activities and events. A central plaza can host pop-up exhibits or performances, as well as vendors and food trucks to enliven the North Charles Street corridor.
The open design allows light to enter the clerestory windows and leaves all student activities and school spirit on display. The Village becomes an ever-changing mosaic of the Johns Hopkins Community, and a village greater than the sum of its parts.
The new Hopkins Student Center is set to begin construction in Spring 2022 and to be completed by Fall 2024. This is BIG’s third academic building in the United States, following the Isenberg School of Management Business Innovation Hub for the University of Massachusetts Amherst and The Heights Building for Arlington Public Schools, both completed in 2019.
More information
Architects
BIG. Bjarke Ingels Group. Partners-in-Charge.- Bjarke Ingels, Leon Rost. Associate-in-Charge.- Elizabeth McDonald. Project Leaders.- Jason Wu, Lawrence Olivier Mahadoo.
Project team
Alex Wu, Xi Zhang, Chia-Yu Liu, Guillaume Evain, Jakub Kulisa, Kig Veerasunthorn, Mike Munoz, Tom Lasbrey, Tony Saba Shiber, Blake Smith, Corliss Ng, Florencia Kratsman, Francesca Portesine, Jamie Maslyn Larson, Gabriel Jewell-Vitale, Kevin Pham, Josiah Poland, Jialin Yuan, Ken Chongsuwat, Duncan Horswill, Ben Caldwell, Margaret Tyrpa, Terrence Chew, Tracy Sodder, Chris Pin, Alexander Matthias Jacobson, Tore Banke, Frederic Lucien Engasser, Xingyue Huang,Jesper Petersen, Kaoan Hengles, Juan Diego Perez.
Collaborators
Shepley Bulfinch (Architect of Record), Rockwell Group (Interior Architects), Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (Landscape Architects).
Client
Johns Hopkins University.
Area
13,935m².
Dates
2020.
Location
Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
BJARKE INGELS
Bjarke Ingels (born in Copenhagen, 1974) studied architecture at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen and at the School of Architecture of Barcelona, obtaining his degree as an architect in 1998. He is the founder of the BIG architecture studio - (Bjarke Ingels Group), studio founded in 2005, after co-founding PLOT Architects in 2001 with his former partner Julien de Smedt, whom he met while working at the prestigious OMA studio in Rotterdam.
Bjarke has designed and completed award-winning buildings worldwide, and currently his studio is based with venues in Copenhagen and New York. His projects include The Mountain, a residential complex in Copenhagen, and the innovative Danish Maritime Museum in Elsinore.
With the PLOT study, he won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2004, and with BIG he has received numerous awards such as the ULI Award for Excellence in 2009. Other prizes are the Culture Prize of the Crown Prince of Denmark in 2011; and Along with his architectural practice, Bjarke has taught at Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University and Rice University and is an honorary professor at the Royal Academy of Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen.
In 2018, Bjarke received the Knight's Cross of the Order of Dannebrog granted by Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II. He is a frequent public speaker and continues to give lectures at places such as TED, WIRED, AMCHAM, 10 Downing Street or the World Economic Forum. In 2018, Bjarke was appointed Chief Architectural Advisor by WeWork to advise and develop the design vision and language of the company for buildings, campuses and neighborhoods around the world.
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