The design concept weaves together spaces for learning and community gathering with the enveloping landscape, historical references to the original estate, daylight, local materials and color.
Susan T. Rodriguez, Design Partner
The Gateway Center is a unique educational crossroads and a defining center for campus life. Sited to take advantage of the natural beauty of the campus landscape, the building serves as the threshold to the College and an initial expression of campus identity.
Two academic wings embrace a landscaped courtyard and are connected by a multi-story transparent glass pavilion that serves as the lobby and welcome center. Defined by an aluminum and glass curtainwall assembly supported by a modular system of structural steel elements, the atrium of the glass pavilion is a column-free space and a daylit and transparent environment.
Building materials – fieldstone, zinc, glass, aluminum – both integrate the Center with the existing campus fabric and distinguish it as a new signature building.
This main public interface for visitors to the building and the campus overall employs transparency to embody principles of openness and accessibility, physically expressing the notion of “gateway” and, through it, the community’s access to education and opportunity.
