A Center for All
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| The southern façade of the Frist Campus Center is new construction that was filled into the "arms" of the existing, U-shaped Palmer Hall, circa 1909. The Princeton shield is fritted directly into the glass. |
It is the combination of the old and the new, the academic and social-and the location-that makes Frist Student Center the heavily trafficked and well-occupied place it is.
The center evolved from an extensive renovation of Princeton University’s original physics laboratory, Palmer Hall, circa 1909, where Einstein taught as a professor when he immigrated to America. The building needed to be both preserved and upgraded, while at the same time the structure had to be changed if it was to attract and serve the entire campus community.
A new 65,000-square-foot building was tucked inside the U of the existing, 100-000 square-foot Palmer Hall, which received a complete renovation. The highlight of the addition was a 58-foot-tall, south facing, glass-and-aluminum curtain wall with the university’s shield fritted directly in the glass.
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FRIST CAMPUS CENTER
Architect: Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates |
"[The shield] appears or disappears depending on whether the sun is there or not," said Architect Denise Scott Brown, principal at Philadelphia-based Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates (VSBA). "You can’t tell what surface it’s on. It has a magical quality."
The juxtaposition of the old narrow, dark, brick-lined corridors or "streets" of Palmer Hall and the spaciousness of the light-filled atrium created a campus center that allowed for both privacy and interaction. The streets are 16-foot-wide corridors lined with ATMs, vending machines, pay phones, e-mail terminals, and large-scale graphics. These walkways, which start at the north entry stairs, extend 140 feet through the "commons" to an overlook to the dining hall; there the expansive south lawn can be viewed through the new glass curtain wall.
In the words of Scott Brown, the design was the brainchild of Robert Venturi: "Robert didn’t much alter the fabric of the old building, but used the space at the center-between the arms of the U-to create a very big, high space. So you have this burrowing through narrow alleys and emerging into a big, open commons."
Site Selection
Princeton University was founded in 1746; it is the country’s fourth oldest university. "One of the best marriages is actually to find a new program use for an old building," said Robert Barnett, assistant director of physical planning at Princeton University, who served as project manager.
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| A new free-standing arcade with light-filled openings was placed at the north entrance to the campus center. |
Princeton inquired about a campus center in the 1920s but it was not until the 1990s when plans started to come into fruition. In the early 20th century, Palmer Hall was toward the edge of the campus, but as the university population grew and structures changed, it came to be sited in the interior of the community.
At present, the campus center is at the edge of academic precincts, close to faculty and student concentrations, and along undergraduate paths. The campus is pedestrian-friendly, where everything is within walking distance.
There was a second site considered for the campus center that was located near the undergraduate dorms and the gym, but the Palmer Hall site was selected in hopes of attracting graduate students, staff, and faculty alike. Barnett knows the right choice was made.
"The campus center needs to be in the center of campus. It sounds obvious, but I’ll tell you, a lot of places make the mistake," said Princeton’s Barnett. "We wanted someplace that was really the crossroads of the campus, where people would be on a natural pedestrian path and would reinforce existing circulation patterns. We wanted to capture that and bring people into the building."
That it does. A recent count of the number of people entering showed 10,000 hits in a single day. Barnett mused that you wonder who these people are. Approximate figures for undergraduates rest at 4,600 and grad student totals sit at 1,750.
"What it shows is that the faculty and staff are using the building. [Our] big fear was that if it was located near the undergraduate dorms and the gym, that it would strictly be an undergraduate center," said Barnett.
The Northern Façade
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| For the 13,600-square-foot curtain wall, metal framing was painted the color of brick. |
"There was a contradiction between the building we had and the kind of program we had to fit into it," said Architect Scott Brown. The existing U-shaped building was designed for a single academic department. "It was really a private building, it didn’t have many doors," said Princeton’s Barnett.
The northern façade was modified at its base to include multiple entrance openings. James Wallace, project manager at VSBA, explained that the design created a modification of the existing building by way of bringing people into the basement of what was formerly the lowest level of Palmer Hall.
Architect Scott Brown said that a new way to enter the building had to be found, different from the way the old building was entered. "Because the whole campus wants to come in at lunchtime, we had to get far more openings into it."
Entrance to the center from the north is by way of wide steps, a half-grade down, leading directly into the maze-like, streets through the commons, and eventually reaching an overlook onto the large dining area that is flush with the southern lawn.
The north side of the building was opened up to welcome heavy traffic and take advantage of the site sloping, the cascade from north to south. The northern side of the center leads to the heart of the academic and administrative facilities.
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Multiple levels and numerous entrances and exits allow people to use the building to get from one side of the campus to the other.
There are entrances on three levels and on four different sides of the building. Barnett said he often comes in at one level, goes down a flight or two, and goes out at the other level.
Historic Renovation
To preserve the old, New York City-based construction manager Barr and Barr did an extensive and highly delicate renovation (in addition to the new construction work).
Before construction, during, and afterward, the fourth floor of the existing building housed the East Asian Studies Department, which includes a rare book collection in the GEST library. Barr and Barr successfully worked around that area, installing all new mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, while maintaining the existing walls.
"The design really dictated to us how we were going to do it because we could not get up through the floors because of existing constraints," said Keith Stanisce, project officer and senior vice president at Barr and Barr. "The existing walls remain."
The construction management firm not only kept the authenticity of the original 1909 Elizabethan-Jacobean-style building, but they did it while it was occupied with students, faculty, and staff-and the rare books were left unscathed.
During new construction, the sophistication was in how the builders excavated-they could not affect the structure or integrity of the old building.
For the new building, "it wasn’t your ordinary ‘just dig a hole and put your footings in and bring the ground up,’" clarified Stanisce. The builders excavated in five-foot lifts, at each five-foot increment they put in a soil-nailing system.
The building was zoned vertically to maintain academic use on the higher floors while lower floors were more social or communal.
Construction took 23 months from start-to-finish, on schedule. The dedication of the center was on the weekend of October 20, 2000.
"We think the building turned out better in the end by consisting of a combination of the old and the new, rather than a brand new building," said Architect Robert Venturi. "It is more likable by being old and new and by involving some kinds of compromises."