The Pratt Institute Residence Hall has completed and opened on Pratt Institute’s Brooklyn campus. The new residence hall is designed to foster a culture of exploration and invention via a purposeful blending of shared and public living, learning, and maker spaces.
The tower’s exterior is composed primarily of brick with curved stainless steel panels. The materials are intended to actively engage the historic brick campus and neighborhood while setting apart the distinctive forms of the central void and lounge spaces.
The project is located about one block from the main campus gate in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood. The main floors are set back from the street with the entrance through a one-story podium. Within the podium, students can use the central event space for social or study activities as well as the adjacent maker spaces, which include studio resources. The tower’s upper floors comprise 14 rooms for two students each. A central lounge on each floor has a work counter and furniture for community use.
A vertical courtyard or “void tower” acts as a distinctive exterior expression that centers student community activity on each floor. The void tower is both an organizational concept for the building as well as a distinctive form that is configured in elevation to expand the dimensions of the openings to the lounges at the upper floors of the building and compress around a skylight central reception lobby.
Hanrahan Meyers Architects worked in collaboration with Cannon Design to design the building. The facade was designed in collaboration with Thornton Tomasetti’s building envelope team.
Related Stories
University Buildings | Apr 28, 2017
Suburban Chicago college breaks ground on aviation-themed student center
The design of the center is meant to pay tribute to the university’s heritage in aviation and aeronautics.
University Buildings | Apr 26, 2017
UMass Amherst is home to America’s first CLT academic building
The building brings the architecture, landscape architecture, and building technology departments under one roof.
Sponsored | Ceilings | Apr 17, 2017
University of Toronto Scarborough Campus building meets aesthetic, performance and sustainability goals with Rockfon ceiling systems
The University of Toronto’s $52.5 million, 126,788-square-foot Environmental Science & Chemistry Building is the newest addition to the Scarborough campus in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Products and Materials | Mar 28, 2017
Mondopads highlight Portland State University’s new Decision Theater
A total of seven InFocus Mondopads were used in the room to accommodate large group work and individual study.
University Buildings | Mar 14, 2017
Fresh off NCAA national title, Clemson opens plush football operations complex
The 142,500-sf facility, which opened just three weeks after Clemson’s national championship win over the University of Alabama, adjoins the indoor practice facility and outdoor practice fields, consolidating football operations into one complex.
University Buildings | Mar 8, 2017
Massive mixed-use residential village on USC’s Los Angeles campus on schedule to open this fall
Prefabrication of the six buildings’ walls reduced construction time by a year.
School Construction | Feb 26, 2017
A new survey finds education construction activity going strong this year
Surveys of school districts and colleges, though, raise questions about financing for future projects.
University Buildings | Jan 10, 2017
UMass Amherst’s Isenberg School of Business to receive modern, twisted addition from BIG
The 70,000-sf building was developed in collaboration with Boston-based Goody Clancy.
University Buildings | Jan 9, 2017
Massive student housing project in Texas will be ready this Fall
Developers hope the early opening of some units sets the tone for the community and future rentals.
University Buildings | Dec 5, 2016
University of Chicago to open new education center in Hong Kong
The new facility will be named for University Trustee, Francis Yuen, and his wife Rose Wai Man Lee Yuen.
