A Model Relationship

Harrisburg University of Science and Technology

Mission: Specific and Critical

The mission statement reads, "The Harrisburg University of Science and Technology [HUST] is an independent educational institution offering academic and research programs in mathematics, science and technology designed to meet the needs of the region’s youth, workforce, and businesses and to expand, attract, and create economic opportunities in the region.”

The idea behind the founding of the University, which received its charter in 2005, was to provide an economic engine for the Harrisburg area. Without a four-year university to help fuel such an effort, Harrisburg decided to build one from scratch. It would be the only STEM-focused comprehensive university between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Private enterprise and government quickly stepped up to help fund an effort seen as essential to the area’s well being.

Downtown: "Things'll be great..."

Burt Hill had designed the master plan for the campus on its original site of 14 acres in a distressed area on the edge of downtown Harrisburg. The master plan had been developed to support an academic program based on both interdisciplinary collaborative learning communities and traditional learning environments. The subsequent decision to move the University to the corner of 4th and Market streets at the very center of downtown reflected the University’s public-private collaboration.

While the new location did not change the University’s program requirements, it did promise to give the University greater visibility, to reinforce its ties with patrons and the employment marketplace, and to provide access to the many amenities within the downtown area. In theory, downtown was to become the campus. And in fact, it has, as echoed by the school motto, “The City is your campus.”

What's Down: Can go up

The change of site did not result in a change of the University’s commitment to an interdisciplinary discourse promoting both student-centric, collaborative learning communities and traditional learning environments. Our challenge was to find a way to transfer an academic village in excess of 370,000 square feet into a vertical footprint 160 feet by 172 feet. It was a matter of looking up and down rather than side to side, of converting 14 acres into 16 stories.

Incorporating the original concept of learning communities into an urban high-rise in the heart of downtown presented an opportunity to create, through architecture, an instant icon that would visually brand the University. Massing decisions, façade articulation, and a distinctive roof profile all served to establish a true destination point with a strong identity that openly calls out the University’s emerging role in the Harrisburg community.

But if the building intentionally stands out, it doesn’t stand apart from its surroundings. The upper floors incorporate contextual materials such as precast panels and continuous ribbon windows that relate the building to its immediate neighbors. The scale of the lower levels matches that of adjacent buildings, with cornices, screening, and a “front porch” that make the modern building very much a part of its historic community. And this connection becomes even more apparent inside the building, where academic and public spaces are carefully interwoven throughout its 16 floors.

Innovation: Go refigure

As the initial building of a planned multi-year development program, the Academic Center encompasses classrooms, an auditorium, laboratories, student team meeting areas, a library and reading room, a conference center, parking, administrative offices, and a full floor of breakout space. The primary academic spaces are on levels 10 through 14. Immediately below are seven levels of parking.

Design was propelled by a massing strategy. Unlike conventional high rises, the building features a split elevator core. Large, precast monoliths contain the elevator towers, opening up the center of the academic floor plates both horizontally and vertically. Extrapolating from the original master plan’s learning pods and their central “learning commons,” we stacked the pods vertically and linked them floor-to-floor by interconnected two-story atria. Doubling as lobbies, learning environments, and programmed public spaces, the atria form an urban stand-in for a more traditional campus. A return air intake at the top of the stacked atria draws air from the open floors below into the air handlers on the penthouse floor, minimizing return-air ductwork.

Studio-based learning environments and a mix of classrooms open onto the atria with these multi-function areas. Intercommunicating stairs alternate across the interlocked atria. Two-story elevator lobbies alternate through the academic floors, encouraging pedestrian activity and providing opportunities for formal and informal encounters among students and faculty – a crucial element in establishing a campus-like feel. The large expanses of glass on the east and west sides of the spaces flood them with daylight, provide great views of the city, and energize an environment that is well connected to its surroundings.

The first floor of the Academic Center houses the main public lobby, Admissions Center, and Reading Room. The double height of the Reading Room firmly claims the corner of 4th and Market for the University, declaring it as a special place of scholarly pursuits and setting the stage for the neighborhood’s potential future as Harrisburg’s intellectual center. It’s also an area for public receptions and events. Outside the Reading Room, the second floor study and stack areas overlook the first floor’s public areas, extending the dialogue between private University and the public still further.

The design of the lower floors incorporates public access to the neighboring Strawberry Square galleria. The connection enables the University to leverage existing galleria functions such as a food court, credit union, performance spaces, and other businesses for students and faculty, while drawing the galleria into the heart of the University. This is also where the public is given convenient access to the parking garage. And it’s here, in this most publicly shared campus area, that Burt Hill developed an environmental graphics and signage program to both direct and instruct students and the public, alike, in the University’s presence and its purpose.

A Model: to model

In the University’s own words, it is “…a model of public-private partnership.” Paying attention to this crucial fact led to a nuanced design that goes beyond the purely technical aspects of architecture and engineering. It responded to “the model,” not only strengthening it for HUST but also establishing a prototype for other communities in pursuit of a workforce adaptable to vagaries of the global economy.

It is also an exemplary first step to this much anticipated urban campus. That it started out as a traditional educational setting with buildings nestled in among green spaces is a testament to how innovation can take change in stride.