a new parking garage to be used jointly by the university and Methodist Hospital. That stipulation resulted in Kirksey being asked to study the feasibility of the site. “We were asked to create a series of feasibility studies exploring the amount of land required for Texas Woman’s University, permitting the remaining land to be reserved for a parking garage” said Wes Good, AIA, Kirksey’s managing principal. This proved to be fortuitous for the creation of the campus, according to project designer Jason Tramonte: “Through those studies an organizational strategy emerged which responded to a number of the chancellor’s requests.” The feasibility studies revealed that the building could be organized as two linear arms, one on the east side of the site facing Fannin and the other on the south side of the site facing Holcombe. This organization not only concealed the parking garage (designed by Morris Architects and built concurrently), it oriented the building to the prime edges of the site, answering programmatic questions of how to house two departments, while stimulating opportunities for interactivity. The emphasis of this emergent concept was on maximizing the corner, establishing it as the primary organizational and architectural focus for the unification of the campus. Organizationally, the strategy was to create a vertical campus “quad” comprised of communal spaces. The Quad, in turn, anchored the two wings perpendicular to the core’s central location. The wings (consisting of labs, classrooms, faculty offices, and lecture halls) formed the academic backbone of the campus. Linking them, and envisioned simultaneously as campus green, common study areas, and social gathering spaces, the Quad became the heart of the campus. Consisting of a cyber café on the first floor, seminar rooms, double-height “hang out” spaces, and an open vertical circulation system, the Quad represented a social and educational condenser by day and an illuminated lantern by night. The academically defined wings are organized to provide common facilities shared by the colleges of the university. To establish independent identities within otherwise similar conditions the circulation in the wings was envisioned as “interior” and “exterior.” With more constricted views to the east along Fannin, programmatic elements were arranged along an interior passage. In the more open, south-facing wing, the corridor is along a shaded, continuous window wall with the labs abutting the parking garage and classrooms located along the north side. Light flowing in on all levels visually activates the circulation space of this south-facing wing, providing an illuminated extension of the Quad.
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(preceding spread, left and right) The design of the Gateway Lobby illustrates the university leadership’s preference for an energized professional environment. A stacked series of public spaces comprise a vertical campus “quad” that connects the two wings of the L-shaped building. (this page, from far left) Thin horizontal louvers shield interior spaces from the eastern and southern sun. Even the lab spaces benefit from natural light. Combining the programs for TWU’s College of Nursing and College of Health Sciences allows students and faculty of the two colleges to interact academically and socially.
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