January 2009
A Well-Centered Campus
Publication: TexasArchitect, Jan/Feb 2009
Title: A Well-Centered Campus
Author: Thomas M. Colert, AIA
Located near the geographic center of Houston’s frenetic urbanism, just below the crosshairs of its freeway system, the Rice University campus harbors an almost monastic quiet tranquility. Rice, with a lot more land per student than at most urban universities, affords quite a bit of distance between students as they wander between the staid allees of shade trees and colonnaded brick buildings. Even at mid-day in the middle of fall semester the quads seem sparsely occupied. But all this may be changing. Under the leadership of President David Leebron, Rice plans to expand its student population and bring “greater dynamism and vibrancy” to the campus. The first physical manifestation of these changes may be the university’s newest building, a 6,000-square-foot coffee house designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners working with landscape architect James Burnett.
The Brochstein Pavilion, named after the owners of Houston’s nationally renowned manufacturer of custom architectural woodwork and furniture, grew out of an earlier proposal to locate a “cyber” café in the adjacent Fondren Library. Ultimately, the renovation of the library did not include a café, but it did include a new west entrance, an entrance that extended the east-west axis of the campus through the library, linking the well-known Academic Quad to the east with the nascent Central Quad to the west. According to campus officials, President Leebron himself determined both the program of the coffee house and its site just outside the west entrance to the library. Upon his arrival at Rice, Leebron is said to have observed that the west end of campus was underutilized and particularly dark at night, and that the campus was sorely in need of a convivial social center. He imagined a place where students and faculty could gather informally, an animated center of campus.
The scheme devised by Phifer is a simple square in plan with floor-to-ceiling glass on all four sides. Glass framing, structure, perforated metal ceiling, overhead shading devices, and interior elements are all white. The only enclosed element of the plan is a white rectangular core containing restrooms and mechanical equipment. The core is set slightly off center on the south side of the building, leaving the newly extended east-west axis of the campus unobstructed and creating large dining and social space to the north and a smaller lounge and reception area to the south.
In describing the initial concept for the building, Phifer says, “We didn’t want it to be closed off like a fortress, but open and inviting. The building was to blend in with the landscape so you can see right through it.” Indeed, one can see through the building. But more important, the interior blends almost seamlessly with the landscape – one feels intimately connected with the garden while inside the building and a part of the life of the interior while outside. This results in part because the interior flooring is flush with the surrounding garden. Other contribution factors are the transparency of the skin and the subtle layering of space and light between the interior and exterior.
On all four sides, an overhead scrim – a parasol of aluminum rods and light steel framing – shades deep verandas. Designed to minimize solar gain on the glass walls it covers, this device may not be entirely successful. Sitting underneath for an August lunch, one wishes it filtered a good bit more of the sun. Still, it very effectively holds the space of the veranda and eases the transition into the building. It also softens the harsh Texas sunlight around the building during the day and provides a reflective surface for upward-directed exterior lights at night. The interior is illuminated by a combination of natural light entering through lyrically shaped north-facing skylights and miniature fluorescent fixtures neatly integrated into a perforated metal ceiling system.
The integration of interior and exterior spaces is meant to be literal as well as phenomenal. When Houston’s weather permits and air conditioning is not necessary, the many large double doors are supposed to be left open to allow a continuous flow of space from the interior out to the veranda and into the surrounding landscape.
To the west of the new building, the West Quad has been redeveloped to include gravel-paved areas equipped with underground electrical service to accommodate temporary facilities for outdoor events. This allows the west veranda to serve as either stage or seating for performances on the lawn. To the east, the building embraces and celebrates a newly important north-south pedestrian path. This walkway links a growing collection of residential colleges to the south with science buildings to the north (where a new physics building by Kieran Timberlake Architects is soon to be built). Also to the east, two groves of semi-mature Drake elms have been planted to shade seating areas on either side of the new library entrance. Beneath the leafy canopy, French café tables surround raised reflecting pools from which water flows to cool the area, a particularly popular outdoor gathering spot, even in the middle of summer.
Just as there is a gently layered transition between the interior and the exterior of the building, there is also a gentle transition between landscape and veranda. The roof shading system reaches out over adjacent circulation zones, engaging them without drawing passersby too deeply into its social sphere. Here the paving opens up, yet Equisetum plantings delineate pedestrian through traffic from outdoor seating areas. Working in concert with the slender columns that support the parasol above, these plantings hold the space of the terrace without obstructing the view to and from its surroundings.
The Brochstein Pavilion engages the campus at a larger scale as well. At night, through the extensive use of outdoor lighting, the pavilion brightens up a part of campus that formerly was very dark. During the day, as the only white building on campus – and almost the only one not clad in brick – it marks the intersection of two new and important pedestrian axes, as well as enhances an otherwise undistinguished entrance to the Fondren Library. It also provides a visual center to the western half of the campus, a focal point that makes the relatively small size of the West Quad evident for the first time. Most important, situated at the heart of the campus, it serves as a place where one can go to read or work at a laptop, wait for friends, and easily fall into conversation with strangers.
Rice University is changing, but in a civilized way. President Leebron has brought to the campus its most outstanding social facility and its first unabashedly modernist architecture. This is a genteel site, landscape, and architecture in the creation of a thoughtfully developed communal space.
Thomas M. Colbert, AIA, is an associate professor and director of graduate studies at the University of Houston’s Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture.
PROJECT Rice University Brochstein Pavilion, Houston
CLIENT Rice University
ARCHITECT Thomas Phifer and Partners
DESIGN TEAM Thomas Phifer, AIA; Don Coz, AIA; Eric Richey; Ryan Indovina
CONTRACTOR Linbeck Group
CONSULTANTS Walter P Moore (civil); Ulrich Engineers (geotechnical); The Office of James Burnett (landscape); Altieri Sebor Wieber (MEPF); Haynes Whaley Associates (structural); Construction Specifications (specifications); Fisher Marantz Stone (lighting); Rolf Jensen & Associates (fire protection)
PHOTOGRAPHER Scott Francis
RESOURCES ARCHITECTURAL WOODWORK: Bronchsteins;
MEMBRANE ROOFING: Johns Manville; GLASS PPG (Viracon); GLAZED CURTAINWALL: Haley-Greer; GYPSUM BOARD FRAMING: Drake Interiors; METAL CEILINGS: Lindner USA (Clunn Acoustical Systems); PAINT: Benjamin Moore; CEILING PANEL FABRIC: Mechoshade; RESTAURANT AND BAR FURNITURE: Republic of Fritz Hansen.