Higher Education Portfolio

Ballinger has been making places for people who make the future since 1878. Healers and learners, makers and innovators: they are the people who inspire us, as their work changes lives for the better. We believe that a building designed and engineered with insight and intelligence becomes a catalyst for today’s transformative endeavors—and an enabler of tomorrow’s ingenious future which belongs to us all.

Our daily shared experiences ensure for our clients an equitable and inclusive process exemplified by active engagement, productive collaboration, and the cross-pollination of design solutions and lessons learned shared across the project types in which we work. This allows our team’s fulfillment of your objective: buildings at the forefront of their field that authentically represent your institution’s values.

We understand complex and ambitious projects often come with constrained budgets, aggressive timelines, and multiple stakeholders. While some consider these a hindrance to achievement, we know them to be the conditions of success. Ballinger’s teams, like a mirror of our clients, are composed of a diverse community of both experts and leaders, spanning multiple generations, all collaborating in our single location in Philadelphia.

I invite you to review these enclosed introductory materials and look forward to the opportunity to discuss in detail your institution’s goals and aspirations for the future. Thank you for your consideration,

JONATHAN STRUTHERS Director of Client Relations & Business Development 215.446.0900 / jstruthers@ballinger.com

About Ballinger

The challenges that are easiest to meet are rarely the challenges that need us the most.

The ones that need us the most are the thorny ones, the interconnected ones, the ones that involve multiple systems and stakeholders, and that can unlock great achievements.

At Ballinger, we embrace these demanding challenges, not for their own sake but for the design potential contained within their resolution — to inspire discovery, to provoke inquiry, to encourage healing, and to spark collaboration. They energize us because they put to use the totality of our expertise and creativity.

As a team of architects, engineers, planners, and interior designers, we work with visionary institutions and organizations to create places that empower those shaping our world.

Through vision and partnership, we design for inspiring and ingenious futures we all hope to share.

We have completed, or currently have in design, projects in over 20 states that respond to the needs, values, and contexts of the people who inhabit them and the institutions, cities, and campus to which they belong. We are particularly proud that many of our projects are the third or fourth for the same client.

Common to all of our work is a commitment to uncovering hidden potential and crafting design solutions that embody the unique spirit of the healers and learners, makers and innovators who are pushing the boundaries of human endeavor to improve society for all. This approach has resulted in transformative environments that, through their missions, provoke change within the institutions and organizations that we are honored to serve.

Ballinger is an award-winning architecture, engineering, planning and interior design firm founded in 1878. We bring together in our single office the experience of over 270 professionals of diverse backgrounds and abilities.

Award-Winning Projects

Designing award-winning architecture while balancing technically complex building programs and intensive engineering requirements is a hallmark of the practice. In 2020, AIA Pennsylvania recognized Ballinger’s passion and notable architecture with the Firm of the Year Award.

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE COUNTY

INTERDISCIPLINARY LIFE SCIENCES BUILDING

AIA Philadelphia Merit Award

2021

ASHRAE Philadelphia Technology Award 2021

ASHRAE Mid-Atlantic Technology Award

2021

ASHRAE Society Second Place Technology Award

2021

AIA Maryland Jury Citation Institutional Architecture

2020

IIDA NJ/PA/DE Chapter

Best of Education/Institution

>30,000 SF

2020

COAA Project Leadership Award

2020

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

STEMMLER HALL

Building Design + Construction Reconstruction Award Bronze 2020

Green Building United Groundbreaker Award Finalist 2019

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

HALL OF SCIENCE

IIDA NJ/PA/DE Chapter

Best of Education/Institution

>30,000 SF

2021

Washington Building Congress

Craftsmanship Award

Cast-in-Place Concrete

2021

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

ANDLINGER CENTER FOR ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

AIA New York Honor Award 2018

About Ballinger

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE FOR FOOD, NUTRITION & HEALTH

AIA New Jersey Honor Award, Built 2016

COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON

SCHOOL OF SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS

AIA South Carolina Honor Award 2011 UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

HARRELL MEDICAL EDUCATION BUILDING

AIA Orlando

Award of Honor

2016

City of Gainesville City Beautification

“Outstanding Institution” Award 2016

AIA New Jersey Merit Award, Unbuilt 2013

THE WISTAR INSTITUTE

ROBERT & PENNY FOX TOWER DVASE

Outstanding Project Award 2015

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

ANNENBERG PUBLIC POLICY CENTER

AIA Pennsylvania

Citation of Merit

2010

AIA Philadelphia Honor Award

2010

BROWN UNIVERSITY

SIDNEY E. FRANK HALL FOR LIFE SCIENCES

AIA Rhode Island Merit Award 2008

AIA Philadelphia Special Recognition Award 2008

Empowering the Human Endeavor

For us, great design begins with intense curiosity. Introduce us to a complicated program, technical challenge, or unique constraint, and we are compelled to learn what lies at its core. We bring a spirit of inquiry and discovery to complex problems, harnessing the breadth of our skills, the depth of our experience, and the acuity of our understanding to achieve design excellence: comprehensive solutions for intelligent spaces and transformative places. We seek to empower bold ideas for bold places that endure and can evolve.

THE WISTAR INSTITUTE

ROBERT & PENNY FOX TOWER

Philadelphia, PA / 100,000 SF

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA

KIEWIT HALL

Lincoln, NE / 180,000 SF

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

NAVAL ARCHITECTURE & MARINE ENGINEERING STUDY

Ann Arbor, MI / 70,000 SF

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE COUNTY

INTERDISCIPLINARY LIFE SCIENCES BUILDING

Baltimore, MD / 131,000 SF

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

SALK HALL RESEARCH PAVILION

Pittsburgh, PA / 351,000 SF

VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY

STEM FACILITY

Richmond, VA / 115,000 SF

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

HALL OF SCIENCE

Washington, DC / 123,000 SF

Critical Considerations

All of the diverse voices that define a project’s “community” must contribute in an inclusive process to ensure a successful outcome.

Inclusion and collaboration are central tenets of our process, with listening, communication, deliberation and respect for stakeholders’ time the fundamental foundations. on similar projects of scale, our workshop methodology is both inclusive and empathetic. Our orchestrated process encourages collaborative inquiry and establishes the groundwork for creative leaps, stakeholder consensus, and project advancement.

RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT

The interdisciplinary research environment is the soul of many of our projects and we recognize discovery is a long and fragile search best achieved in an inspired environment which provides focus, flexibility and the opportunity to collaborate and exchange ideas.

INTEGRATING TECHNICAL COMPLEXITY

Multi-discipline initiatives impact the fabric of respective campuses across many dimensions and offer the potential to create a vibrant layered community of thought, discovery and invention. Balllinger knows how to design, engineer and manage the risks associated with impactful design and technically complex initiatives to ensure enduring, collaborative and flexible outcomes that are highly sensitive to operational requirements.

EMBRACING HUMAN COMPLEXITY

Designing is a people process. Convergent research excellence involves a vast array of stakeholders — all passionate about their pursuits. Honed over decades of experience

BALANCING ASPIRATION AND COST

We collaborate on every element of the project with curiosity and innovation to optimize the balance of scope, cost and quality in realizing our clients’ aspirational objectives.

COMMITMENT TO OUR CLIENTS

Once-in-a-generation projects require a team and process that have delivered those results to others. Our University projects are rarely transactional and are most often “forever” assets requiring flexibility and endurance while balancing quality and cost. For aspirational projects we appreciate the available timeframe and depth of experience anticipated for such an undertaking. In our experiences, mapping out a process and understanding focus areas will inform how we align our design collaborators.

About Ballinger

Equity & Inclusion

We feel a responsibility to the communities and cities in which we work. Our practice is focused on design that improves health, supports learning and discovery, contributes to an institution’s members’ well-being, and betters our communal lives. We view social equity as a crucial component of that betterment. We see social equity as inseparable from environmentalism, and as signatories of AIA’s 2030 commitment, we remain dedicated to a healthy, sustainable, and equitable future. We recognize that our clients, project stakeholders, and the occupants of the environments we design are seeking equitable and just processes and spaces. We are committed to addressing those priorities in our projects and within our studio.

EPIC FIRM RECOGNITION

Ballinger is consistently recognized as an EPiC (Emerging Professionals in the Community) Firm by the AIA Pennsylvania Chapter. The award honors Pennsylvania firms that support EPiC’s mission to promote the development of emerging professionals through leadership, mentorship, and fellowship. Our approach to enhancing

economic opportunity often includes engaging minority, veteran and womenowned businesses as sub-consultants, as well as firms that will have a direct benefit to the city and state economy. In the spirit of mentoring, we work collaboratively with architecture, structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and specialty disciplines.

Stakeholder Engagement by Design

Key to a successful project outcome is our deliberate workshop process based on inclusion with a commitment to active listening, communication and respect for project stakeholders’ time as a foundation. Our process involves two-day workshops at three to four week intervals that begin and end with steering committee plenary sessions. On the first day we frame issues with the steering committee at an opening plenary session, followed by broad stakeholder reviews that offer opportunities for detailed feedback. Overnight and on the second day, our team leadership

assesses cross constituency alignment and envelops

“real-time” synthesis-focused options for final steering committee plenary session review and action.

WORKSHOP AT SWARTHMORE COLLEGE

About Ballinger

WORKSHOP3

Discuss, Deliberate, Decide

Our design process evolves each major design issue over three workshop sessions, the first facilitating broad issue discussions, the second for deliberating options, and the third for decision-making supported by design team leadership recommendations. The cadence of “discuss-deliberate-decide” over three workshop sessions provides necessary client input gestation time while enabling simultaneous design team evaluation of program, design, and systems/cost criteria. This process ensures comprehensively assessed decisions that are goal driven and feasibility balanced for enduring project advancement.

Environmental Stewardship

Since the firm’s beginnings, we have integrated engineering prowess with our architectural designs to most efficiently and artfully achieve a project’s mission. Ours is a design culture, where experience and analytical tools ensure that complex projects, which can be resource-consumptive, are sustainable (environmentally responsible) in both design and operation. Our commitment to that goal only deepens as the demands of sustainable building systems intensify. As resources become more constrained and valuable, the challenge becomes more urgent. Ballinger’s response will always be grounded in our founding ethos.

BARNES FOUNDATION Art Education Center

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY Undergraduate Teaching Labs

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Salk Hall

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Science & Engineering Hall

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY Hall of Science

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA Stemmler Hall

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK

A. James Clark Hall

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Taubman Health Sciences Library

BEREA COLLEGE Cargill Natural Sciences & Health Building

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA Evans Building

About Ballinger

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA Colket Translational Research Building

We craft progressive, sustainable building systems. The chart below represents the evolution of our approach to university science and research laboratories over the past twenty years, marching towards net zero.

Integrated Sustainability Approach

Ballinger approaches sustainability in a holistic manner and seeks solutions that seamlessly integrate the various components of a project’s architecture, engineering, landscape and site in service of optimal building performance and a healthy environment.

With each project we are continually progressing towards carbon-neutral buildings and substantive resource reduction. This is particularly critical in the types of complex, and often large, projects at which we excel, as they tend to be programmatically diverse, energy-intensive and must serve efficiently and durably for many decades. Therefore our team understands the need to promote the ideals of environmental stewardship in balance with the realities of specific space type performance criteria, durable and protective construction, and a finite budget. Within this context our recommendations are always evaluated against first and life cycle costs and take into account the often ongoing challenges of operating and maintaining building systems with limited staff and operating budgets. Consequently, we prioritize as often as possible passive solutions to minimize ongoing operational expenditures.

From the earliest phases of the design we use the latest in energy modeling software to set energy goals and for comparison to recent benchmarks. With the input of our in-house engineers, along with landscape architects, civil engineer and sustainability consultants, we evaluate the energy and resource impacts of various design options as we seek to optimize the building and site’s systems. We will also always advocate for enhanced commissioning to ensure these systems perform as intended, thereby delivering to an owner the highest value.

Northeast facing glass from laboratories for abundant daylight and views with minimum solar heat gain

Total energy recovery

DOAS Air Handlers

High efficiency chilled beam cooling

Bioswales for roof and site stormwater runoff and habitat restoration

Pervious site paving for walkways

About Ballinger

Reduced glazing to southeast and southwest to minimize solar heat gain. Northwest glazing treated with projecting shades and frit glass to reduce glare and heat gain

Thin building volume and internal transparency create ‘see through’ building for daylight balance and views in two directions

Greenroof at lower level roof to capture the stormwater runoff

Air share allows return air from classrooms to be used as makeup air in higher air flow laboraties, thus reducing overall building air volume requirements

Agile Expertise

Our approach to building systems is to design cost-effective, high-performance systems infrastructure capable of accommodating a wide range of usages and configurations as programs evolve. We also anticipate changes in these systems such that they can be updated or replaced at the end of their life cycle without major building modifications. We achieve this by focusing on the following principles to guide our work:

Flexibility & Adaptability

As with architecture, building systems must maximize flexibility to accommodate evolving programmatic needs. Based on a building’s program, its systems must be able to easily accommodate potentially complex intertwined lab/classrooms, dry/wet, macro/micro, chemical/biological agents, multidisciplinary collaboration and student projects. The pace of change in teaching and research will challenge any initial presumptions we make; therefore, we believe it is essential to make the systems adaptable while minimizing preinvestment. Providing an appropriate systems infrastructure and logical strategies to modify them with pathways for future services and space for future equipment can be more prudent than investing in equipment and capacities that may not be utilized by the initial building program.

Systems Demand

Considering the volatility of energy costs, limiting the energy demands of all buildings must be a priority. To that end, we evaluate all components of the building design to minimize the systems demands and energy requirements. We optimize daylighting while minimizing solar gain in cooling seasons and utilizing solar gain in heating season. We recommend the use of high performance wall, roof and glazing assemblies to minimize energy loss. We consider natural ventilation or hybrid ventilation for public spaces that can be transitional between indoor and outdoor environments. Using the latest energy modeling software, we can create an early energy model, set specific energy goals and evaluate a variety of strategies across a range of performance and cost criteria to find the best solution.

Iterative Energy Modeling

Ballinger utilizes advanced energy modeling tools as a predictive measure for informed decision-making throughout the design process. Potential system solutions are thoroughly investigated and evaluated for feasibility using high-speed high-volume analysis. This approach ensures no stones are left unturned during system evaluation. Our engineers and architects collaborate intensely to reduce the carbon impact of buildings through passive solutions as well as active mechanical solutions. Architectural solutions can mitigate a significant amount of a building’s energy load, for example via high performance building envelopes and passive shading strategies. While this may increase initial construction costs, long-term mechanical operation and maintenance costs are greatly reduced and there is the possibility of elimination of systems that offset increased envelope costs.

Operations Maintenance

Building systems for academic buildings often require a certain degree of complexity to meet the program requirements. Our objective in designing the systems is to avoid overly complex and costly solutions that are difficult to operate and maintain. We believe that a system with fewer robust parts will generally work better over the long term. It is also important to integrate mechanical and electrical systems into the building architecture to ensure operating equipment and components are accessible and that future modifications have been anticipated. We believe the easier a building is to operate, the better it will be maintained and the better it will serve the programmatic functions of the occupants. We aim to ensure the systems we design fit into the overall campus operations and maintenance context.

Crafting Healthy Environments

As a foundational tenet of our interdisciplinary process, we take pride in designing and delivering enduring buildings that embrace health, wellness and environmental stewardship. This principle imbues our firm culture, process and projects with fundamentals that consider energy, building material choices, design for change, and other factors that impact occupant well being, operating costs and permanence. Design and planning strategies include:

MOVEMENT

• Abundant Access to Daylight

• Ease of Wayfinding to Stair

Circulation Elements

• Hold Open Access Control to Stairs / Choice to Climb-Descend

Daylight and Increased Width to Encourage Stair Usage

• Variety of Available Outdoor Venues Low & High in the Building

• Interior Landscape Extending from the Exterior Up and Into the Facility

• Daylighting to Core Program AreasToilets & Elevator Lobbies

OCCUPANT SERVICE

• Touchless & Intelligent Entry Arrival Systems

• Elevator Destination Dispatch Service

• Protected Bicycle & Scooter Areas both Indoor & Outdoor

• Enable Transit / Shuttle Oriented Systems

Consider Planning for Ride-Sharing Pick Ups and Drop Offs

• Touchless Toilet Facilities

Gender Neutral Toilet Facilities

• Shower, Locker & Changing Accommodations

SYSTEMS DESIGN

• Greywater Conservation Strategies Within the Facility

• Raising the Baseline for Minimum Energy Efficiency

• 100% Outside Air with Energy Recovery Systems

• Higher Air Changes per Hour (+_8 vs 4)

• Utilize the Higher MERV 14 Standard for Air Systems Filtration

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCIENCE & ENGINEERING HALL

About Ballinger

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN WISCONSIN INSTITUTES FOR DISCOVERY

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN WISCONSIN INSTITUTES FOR DISCOVERY

Promoting Wellness

Projects with the potential for community impact move beyond the standard tenets of environmentally friendly design to a new level of healthy building. This begins with the building design and infrastructure and includes social and interaction areas that extend a lifestyle of wellness on campus for students, physicians, researchers and staff.

Work load, burn-out and exhaustion during the recent COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of reducing stress and creating places of respite. Program areas for nutrition and movement can also serve as learning opportunities for coaching toward a healthier lifestyle. Presentation kitchens and on-site personal trainers can extend facilities for behavioral education opportunities. The

performance-based WELL Building Standard is focused on comfort and well being. This is an opportunity to improve human sustainability within the built environment across a subset of design criteria. We seek collaborations with our clients to lead and inspire healthy, sustainable innovations in support of a global efforts to measure and improve our environmental impact.

Implement ventilation and air filtration systems to enhance indoor air quality.

Integrate water filtration and conservation into building system strategy.

Enable the space for healthy eating habits.

Maximize access to light to harmonize occupant experience with their natural circadian rhythm.

Create opportunities for routine physical activity with technology and program spaces.

Embed best practices for thermal and acoustic control to naturally influence productive and enjoyable space.

Advocate for occupant mental and emotional health through adaptable space, biophilia and programming.

Select Projects

We seek bold ideas for bold people and places that endure, evolve, and empower.

In our philosophy of higher education, we seek to realize memorable and welcoming campus-making focused on sense-of-place tangibility that exceeds goals for environmental performance with a future-proofed flexible framework, all in careful balance with budget, constructability and lifelong systems operation for maximum value.

Weaving together a diverse campus. Blurring the boundary between inside and out. Making a new home for nursing. Forming a hub for the whole campus community.

The Nexus Building connects many disparate elements on the Adelphi campus. Redefining the entrance experience, the building facilitates transition from perimeter parking to the garden-like core. It weaves together a context of diverse architectural periods and scales, from the classical Levermore Hall to the modern Swirbul Library. A new home for the nursing school, The Nexus Building also contains resources for the university as a whole.

Vision

Adelphi University named this new project the Nexus Building before hiring the architect to design it and in advance of pursuing donors. The name foretold both the function and the importance of this building on the campus.

The design concentrates the dense academic and administrative spaces along the parking side of the building to allow the commons to spatially open up to the campus. This enables the building to be visually inviting from the outside and a vibrant interactive place inside.

The focus of the internal activity is concentrated at the corner overlooking the main campus quad where the presentation room levitates over the campus as a symbolic expression of the University’s open character as well as its ambitious aspirations.

The Building’s Role

The state-of-the-art facility is L-shaped, integrating with existing campus buildings and a below-grade parking structure. The east wing includes a public Welcome Center for student services, admissions and alumni outreach.

The larger south wing houses the primary learning spaces, including classrooms and simulation labs.

LEVERMORE HALL REFLECTED IN THE NEXUS BUILDING

Materiality

The majority of existing campus buildings have some amount of brick in a full range of reds with quantities of glass reflective of their period of design. The Nexus Building uses extensive areas of clear, colored or fritted glass that are interwoven with composite rain screen panels to develop surface, frame, and volume. These same materials transition from the exterior to interior, blurring the boundary between inside and out.

Organizing Principles

1

Program Bars

Located on a site that is on both the main quad and the edge of campus, the building presents a more solid façade to the campus perimeter through program bars.

Commons

The commons and student interaction spaces open into the center of campus through large expanses of glass.

4

3 Core

The center of the L-shaped building also serves as the main access point between floors.

Programmatic Boxes

The dense academic and administrative spaces are concentrated on the perimeter, with windows representing more individualized spaces.

Commons

The commons is a place of interaction and collaboration. Spatial fluidity and visual connectivity make the building a hub of activity for study and socialization. There are many different types and scales of spaces to accommodate the various engagement needs of students and faculty.

Porosity

Sustainability is a key design attribute of the Nexus Building. Natural light fills the building, minimizing the need for artificial lighting. The south and east façades allow a degree of heat gain in the cooler months while sensor-controlled exterior roller shades limit heat gain in

the warmer months. A neutral air/chilled beam decouples ventilation from heating/ cooling, resulting in smaller duct sizes and thus higher ceilings for greater light penetration. Major roof areas are vegetated green roofs with a rainwater collection system for irrigation.

Learning Experience

Simulation is an opportunity to facilitate learning for nursing students through immersion, reflection and feedback. The design of these spaces is informed by our deep clinical portfolio and a rich understanding of today’s simulation technologies.

In addition to these specialized spaces, the building contains general classrooms, a learning center, and a light-filled presentation room.

Shifting five small buildings into one landmark. Bridging the science and humanities precincts. Enhancing the identity of engineering. Breaking down boundaries between disciplines.

Ballinger developed a master plan for the College of Engineering that led to a bold recommendation: demolish five existing buildings and create one new interdisciplinary teaching and research landmark. The new Fascitelli Center can respond to the changing technology needs of society and the global reach of the engineering profession. The exterior responds to adjacent existing buildings and threads two parts of the campus together.

Made for Engineers

Designed specifically to house engineering, the architecture expresses and evokes the discipline, while also responding to adjacent existing buildings. The Fascitelli Center is designed to integrate with the engineering programs of two adjacent existing buildings.

Anticipating the Future

The key design feature of the five-story building is a truss support system, which eliminates the need for interior support columns and allows for uninterrupted open interiors. Ballinger’s structural engineers and architects collaborated on the design of the truss, which is visible from the exterior and represents explicitly the aspirations of URI’s engineering programs.

1,500,000 Pounds

1,500,000 pounds!

Interactive Circulation

The first floor is focused on active learning labs, classrooms, and capstone studios, all organized around a central ground-floor commons to stimulate interaction. The commons faces the campus quad, drawing students and faculty into a hub of discovery.

Organizing Principles

The academic teaching labs, classrooms, and capstone studios are located on the lower levels in an open environment of makerspaces, student shops, and high-bay construction platforms surrounding a central Commons. This orchestration of spaces creates a dynamic environment of discovery for the entire complex.

The upper floors are dedicated to research in a loft-like setting and are characterized by trusses that provide a column-free flexible research platform.

Research in Sight

The powerful truss system is used to great advantage on the upper floors. Full glass walls enable research to be on complete display. Offices are located away from research spaces to discourage ownership and promote collaboration between disciplines.

VIEW TO INNOVATION LAB FROM CAMPUS PASSAGE

Making

A. James Clark Hall facilitates world-class research by bringing together students of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, material science, bioengineering, and information technology with a common interest in human health. The building creates a transparent, open environment that encourages discovery, learning, and spontaneous discussion. CAMPUS

Mixing a diverse series of programs.

a space that fully activates your field of vision. Overcoming a tight space requirement. Incorporating engaging spaces for experiential learning.

A New Landmark

As the flagship building of a new district masterplan, A. James Clark Hall was intended as the design precedent for future generations of new buildings. Located relatively far from the historic campus core, the building is taller than its peers. Use of red brick serves as a binding reference to its campus context, while a DNA-inspired solar veil is symbolic of the bioengineering program within.

Convergence

A. James Clark Hall is designed for the convergence of multiple scientific and engineering disciplines. To echo this theme visually, transparency is a critical element. Activating a person’s full range of vision creates a dynamic environment of openness and convergence. Through transparent teaching labs, prototyping suites, an openable multiuse forum, and active learning classrooms, innovation is put on display. In lieu of traditional student gathering spaces, the Innovation Lab becomes the heart and soul of the building as a “working commons.”

7' Corridor Closed Space

7' Corridor Transparent or Open Space

Forum Lab

Teaching Moments

Exposed systems throughout the building provide teaching opportunities for the School of Engineering. These functional systems are compositionally orchestrated to be central to the architectural experience. The building’s outstanding energy performance stems from its high performance envelope, dual energy recovery ventilation, and neutral air share chilled beam mechanical system.

STENT-INSPIRED COLUMN DESIGN

TRANSPARENT CHILLER PLANT

Innovation Lab

The Student Innovation Lab serves as the building’s “Working Commons” and is a highly flexible student-team based maker space for both small and large projects. The overlook conference room and 2nd floor mezzanine corridor provide observation of student activities below. Low velocity air provides displacement cooling and ventilation from industrial vertical air column/diffusers.

The Forum

To maximize utilization, rooms are designed to support student project work while also converting to table-based

classroom space. A multi-function forum serves as a venue for formal outreach gatherings as well as regular classes and serves as a campus-wide events venue. Operable walls retract into the ceiling, enabling use of the forum in combination with the Innovation Lab.

Transparency, Interdisciplinary

Highly flexible loft labs promote interdisciplinary collaboration across a wide variety of research modalities. Abundant transparency and a throughfloor workstation to lab plan organization contributes to a vibrant, diurnal environment for inspiring discovery.

The neutral air share/chilled beam mechanical system reduces air requirements, maximizing ceiling heights, providing superior acoustics and energy efficiency, and accommodating the full range of convergent science/engineering environments.

A. James Clark Hall

STAIR CONNECTING RESEARCH SPACES

VIEW FROM BUFANO SCULPTURE GARDEN

LOCATION / Baltimore, MD

SIZE / 105,000 SF CONSTRUCTION COST / $47.3M

LEED / Platinum

Johns Hopkins University

Undergraduate Teaching Labs

Awards

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF HEATING, REFRIGERATING AND AIR-CONDITIONING ENGINEERS / Technology Award, First Place, 2017

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR SUSTAINABLE LABORATORIES / “Go Beyond” Award, 2017

SOCIETY FOR COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY PLANNING / Excellence in Architecture, Honor Award, 2016

U.S. GREEN BUILDING COUNCIL, MARYLAND / Wintergreen Award, 2016

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF HEATING, REFRIGERATING AND AIR-CONDITIONING ENGINEERS, PHILADELPHIA / Technology Award, 2015

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF HEATING, REFRIGERATING AND AIR-CONDITIONING ENGINEERS, MID-ATLANTIC / Technology Award, 2015

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, PENNSYLVANIA / Honor Award, 2015

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, PHILADELPHIA / Honor Award, 2014

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, MARYLAND / Merit Award, 2014

Science in nature.

Maximizing energy efficiency. Providing a worthy link to the garden. Inspiring creativity in the labs. Unifying a building program with its site.

A north facing glazed wall overlooks a wooded sculpture garden, creating a showcase for sciences while achieving LEED Platinum certification. The teaching lab addition completed a 1970’s era biology research building and enabled a phased renovation.

Science in Nature

The architecture forms a bond between the program and nature. The building’s gently curving arc embraces the nearby sculpture garden, providing unobstructed views from the labs out to the landscape. A campus walkway complements the building’s shape, creating a path through the woods. Depending on the ambient lighting conditions, the glass façade either highlights the activity of science within or the beauty of nature outside.

VIEW FROM WALKWAY

A New Approach

Ballinger collaborated with Johns Hopkins University to create a multi-disciplinary shared teaching lab that replaced antiquated and dispersed teaching labs from various departmental home facilities. The new facility allows Johns Hopkins to embrace an interdisciplinary approach to science education that modernizes their curriculum from one of traditional “cookbook” experiments to experiential learning.

Achieving LEED Platinum

An innovative ventilation system uses air handlers with dual enthalpy wheels to capture both heat and humidity from outgoing airstreams while preconditioning incoming ventilation. Cooling is provided by active chilled beams, while heating is provided by a perimeter fin tube system at the base of the curtainwall. Many of the labs have a high density of fume hoods and thus large makeup air requirements; these are accommodated using a pressurized plenum above the corridor which allows fresh air to enter each individual lab via a baffle system that passively balances air pressure between labs. Venturi valves regulating fume hood exhaust are located in service closet/valve galleries integrated into the lab layout resulting in a chemistry fume hood teaching environment that is amazingly quiet. This building’s energy performance is over 50% better than the LEED baseline building.

The New Standard

The Undergraduate Teaching Labs grew out of a natural and social science master plan Ballinger authored for the University several years earlier.

Awards

SOCIETY

Advancing a convergent mission of discovery. Assembling the largest academic building of its kind in DC. Integrating historic buildings. Forging new interdisciplinary partnerships.

A new campus landmark building is constructed as a home for the natural sciences that offers best-in-class teaching spaces while manifesting the University’s commitment to sustainability. The building includes chemistry and biology teaching, along with a host of related disciplines and specialty spaces for engineering. Emphasis was placed on creating a flexible environment that encouraged collaboration and social gathering between disciplines.

CAMPUS

VIEW FROM ACROSS THE STREET

ELEVATION VIEW

Urban Integration

The exterior design fits seamlessly within the community and four distinct entrances help form an open ground floor. Learning spaces are articulated as individual components, creating glass “storefronts.” The building weaves three neighboring historic residence halls into an overall full block composition, and uses their colors in its own design.

Organizing Principles

Due to the sheer scale of the project, multiple interdisciplinary program neighborhoods were developed to create local communities. These units are connected to the monumental stair, teaching tower, and the Hub, to physically and symbolically unite floors into a building-wide community.

Bay Windows at Garden Atria

Garden Atriums

Building Façades

Monumental Stair

Teaching / Retail Pods

Teaching Tower

Exterior Design Strategy

Interior Design Strategy

Historic Residence Halls

The Hub

VIEW TO THE HUB

The Hub & Stairwell

The building is organized around a central common space—the Hub—a shared resource promoting interdisciplinary interactions and discussions for the building’s convergent programs. Bursts of color in the otherwise neutral palette assist in wayfinding from the stairwell.

Garden Neighborhoods

Eight multi-story garden atria, located at the building perimeter, internally and externally define the building’s local neighborhoods while connecting with the larger urban community of the campus. Each atrium is defined by unique plant life that is sustained by natural daylight.

Programming Patchwork

The success of the project is due in large part to the commitment of the faculty and facilities groups to embrace an environment without traditional barriers. Two schools and ten departments supported organizing the building by teaching and research themes rather than departments. The building is designed for flexibility, enabling the ratio of teaching and research programs to adjust and accommodate emerging trends in pedagogical and scientific programs.

Versatile Environments

Teaching and research are integrated throughout the building, creating an engaged learning environment. From active teaching studios to a 70’ collaboration wall, spaces accommodate a variety of different approaches and needs.

VIEW FROM NASON GARDEN

LOCATION / Swarthmore, PA

SIZE / 158,925 SF

CONSTRUCTION COST / $98.6M

LEED / Equivalent to Platinum

Swarthmore College Singer Hall

Enriching the overall community. Respecting the campus context. Establishing a unique contemporary sense of place. Maintaining exemplary environmental stewardship.

Singer Hall is an interdisciplinary science facility for biology, engineering, and psychology located on Swarthmore College’s arboretum campus. It establishes a new southern edge to future campus expansion while embracing the nearby Nason Garden. The project is also the first to use a new set of sustainable standards for Swarthmore College.

A New Neighbor

The interdisciplinary goal of combining three departments led to a building that extends connections between the College’s engineering program and liberal arts education. This strategic plan reinterprets the concept of liberal arts, integrating academic rigor and creativity with community and engagement in the world. Flexible classrooms, additional indoor and outdoor common space, and enhanced pedagogical experiences linked to environmental sustainability all support this mission. The end result is a building that is larger than much of the adjacent context. To compensate, the building steps back strategically based on nearby buildings at each orientation.

Organizing Principles

1

Site Shape

The building is an L-shaped lab wing formed to emphatically define the north and east edges of Nason Garden. Faculty offices are linearly arrayed to become an independent pavilion placed within Nason Garden, forming an internal sky-lit commons in-between.

Collaboration Spaces

Programmatically, collaboration spaces are distributed throughout the building to complement interdepartmental space.

L-Shaped Wing

Garden Pavilion

Nason Garden Commons

4

3

Interdisciplinary Weaving

Complementary departments are coupled with collaboration spaces to foster interdisciplinary collaboration.

Departmental Identity

Special departmental spaces are located at each of the building orientations and accompany main building entrances. Unique building portals promote departmental identity.

Blurring Boundaries

The L-shape teaching / research lab wing embraces Nason Garden. Taking advantage of spectacular views, the ground floor commons is completely transparent and skylit. Multiple entrances align

internal circulation with external campus pathways. Varied and regionally-based microecosystem landscapes surround the building, uniquely distinguishing each entrance.

Beyond LEED

Optimized Building Envelope

External shading helps reduce unwanted solar heat gain during the summer and can enhance visual comfort by controlling daylight.

Daylight Distribution & Controls

The atrium and skylights bring light deeper into the building. Advanced lighting controls, such as daylight dimming, enhance the quality of space as well as conserve energy.

Connection to Nature

The atrium space is enhanced by bringing the character of Nason Garden in to the interior. Native and adaptive vegetation are integrated into the landscape.

Water Reuse & Conservation

Stormwater is collected to use for toilet flushing. The installation of high efficiency Water Sense labeled fixtures contribute to water conservation.

High Performance Heating, Ventilation, & Air Conditioning

Dual energy recovery ventilation units provide dehumidified neutral (68°F) air eliminating reheat requirements. Chilled beams and low temperature hot water radiation provide local heating and cooling. A heat recovery chiller augments campus provided chilled and hot water.

In 2015, Swarthmore College and Ballinger set out to create a unique sustainability framework that was more synergistic with the College’s values than LEED or other rating systems.

Ballinger designed Singer Hall as the first major project to meet these high standards.

7

Stormwater Management

A stormwater tank at the building will collect water from the roof to be repurposed. The water strategy is also closely tied to the landscape, with vegetated and pervious areas allowing for stormwater infiltration.

Energy Savings

This project initiates the first phase of a Campus Infrastructure Renewal that replaces the steam system with a hot water system powered by renewable biofuels.

Radiant Flooring

A radiant floor in the atrium provides efficient, direct heat to the space without heating the entire volume of the atrium.

Chilled Beams

Chilled beams in the labs are coupled with sophisticated controls to modulate the amount of ventilation air delivered to each space.

9

Materials

Specifying environmentally-responsible materials has a positive impact on building occupants, the building industry, and earth’s natural resources. Material selection is based on high volume and high visibility for the largest impact.

Woven Departments

Programmatically, collaboration spaces are distributed throughout the building to promote interdisciplinary interactions. Special departmental spaces are located at each of the building orientations and accompany main building entrances, resulting in unique building portals that promote departmental identity.

Injecting new life into an icon of scientific research. Adapting to new programmatic needs. Forming a new gathering space. Creating significant energy and carbon reductions.

Through an extensive feasibility study, Ballinger shaped a strategy for the re-use of the 100+ year old Edward Henry Kraus Building in the heart of the campus, designed by Albert Kahn. Assessment revealed a facility with small compartmentalized spaces, disorienting floorplans lacking access to natural light, and an antiquated structural system.

New Approach

The addition provides a light-filled Commons Living Room, large active learning classrooms, and high bay performance labs. It also provides streamlined internal circulation pathways.

Designed to encourage and reflect the study of human movement, the Commons features a series of gently curving stairs and balconies. An air-filled ETFE skylight membrane blankets the space.

CLEARING EXTERIOR COURTYARD + OLD SYSTEMS

APPROACH TO CURVED STAIRS

FORMING SKYLIGHT MEMBRANE

Organizing Principles

Significant energy and carbon reduction opportunities can be realized by assessing cost effective energy conservation measures (ECM) at the source of use: the building. The Kinesiology Building includes 15% wet lab/ vivarium space, 35% dry research and 50% classroom space. Energy usage reduced by over 50% compared to a code-compliant building, resulting in LEED Gold certification while retaining the buildings character, preserving the historic exterior and increasing natural light and openness in the space. As part of this project, Ballinger was also challenged to address stormwater management issues in the central campus.

Underground Stormwater Infiltration Area Under Pervious Pavers and Porous Bituminous Pavement

Underground Stormwater Infiltration Area 2

6

Underground Stormwater Infiltration Area Beneath Lawn

3 4 2 6

Underground Stormwater Infiltration Area Beneath Pervious Pavers

Chilled Beams

Campus

Chilled beams are room air recirculation devices that transfer sensible heat to and from the space using water. The air terminal is equipped with a modulated flow cooling coil and allows for both supply air from connected ductwork and induced air from the space to pass over the cooling coil and provide efficient temperature control of the space.

7

Dual-Wheel Energy Recovery

Energy wheels transfer heat and moisture between outdoor and building air streams limiting the need for energy-intensive mechanical conditioning, while maintaining acceptable indoor air quality.

Reduces heating energy by 50% compared to a standard HVAC System by drastically reducing “reheat” energy.

When coupled with the neutral air system, inefficient space reheat is eliminated.

Chilled beams are room air recirculation devices that transfer sensible heat to and from the space using water. The air terminal is equipped with a modulated flow cooling coil and allows for both supply air from connected ductwork and induced air from the space to pass over the cooling coil and provide efficient temperature control of the space.

When coupled with the neutral air system, inefficient space reheat is eliminated.

Recovers heat from laboratory fume hood exhaust and vivarium exhaust and pre-heats or pre-coils outdoor air serving the vivarium.

New Mechanical Penthouse with Screenwall Enclosure and ETFE Skylight

Underground Stormwater Infiltration Area Beneath Lawn

Recovers heat from laboratory fume hood exhaust and vivarium exhaust and pre-heats or pre-coils outdoor air serving the vivarium.

Dual-Wheel Energy Recovery “Neutral Air”

Lawn

Energy wheels transfer heat and moisture between outdoor and building air streams limiting the need for energy-intensive mechanical conditioning, while maintaining acceptable indoor air quality.

“Neutral Air”

Energy wheels transfer heat and moisture between outdoor and building air streams limiting the need for energy-intensive mechanical conditioning, while maintaining acceptable indoor air quality.

Reduces heating energy by 50% compared to a standard HVAC System by drastically reducing “reheat” energy.

Reduces airflow requirements by nearly 60% as compared to a standard HVAC System.

3 2 2 125

Ingalls Mall Mason

Dual-Wheel Energy Recovery

Underground Stormwater Infiltration Area Beneath

Energy Recovery Coils

The Diag

Ingalls Mall

Central Campus

Chemistry Building

Chilled Beams

Underground Stormwater Infiltration Area Beneath Pervious Pavers

Underground Stormwater Infiltration Area

Underground Stormwater Infiltration Area Under Pervious Pavers and Porous Bituminous Pavement

Reduces heating energy by 50% compared to a standard HVAC System by drastically reducing “reheat” energy.

8

“Neutral Air”

Bike

The Diag Bike

Mason Hall

Central

exhaust and vivarium exhaust and pre-heats or pre-coils outdoor air serving the vivarium.

Structure Supporting Program

The School of Kinesiology has wideranging programmatic needs for their new facility which were planned into the renovation. Learning spaces are diverse and include traditional classrooms, large active learning studios, high performance computing labs and small team-based group rooms.

A 4-story reinforced exposed concrete “tube” provides new lateral strengthening for the building, eliminating requirements for additional columns and heavy bracing. This concrete element provides free-span space for high bay research, large active learning classrooms, and rooftop penthouse area.

MOTION PERFORMANCE CAPTURE LAB

Welcoming a fractured program onto the main campus. Forging the path for a new series of tower projects. Creating a new connection point.

The Drexel Academic Tower will enable professional connections and collaboration between Drexel’s College of Nursing and Health Professions (CNHP), College of Medicine (CoM), and the Graduate School. Previously, the CNHP program was split between five spaces, with research, learning, and administrative space divided in different buildings throughout the city. These programs will now all be collocated in a new 12-story tower.

A New Identity

The new building will bring together academic and research programs, while allowing students, faculty, and professional staff to access important campus resources and engage with Drexel’s other colleges and schools.

President John Fry believes that the project will “further our roots as an anchor institution in West Philadelphia focused on both innovation and inclusion.”

Academic Spaces

The location and academic program are the results of two studies by Ballinger in 2018: a site selection study and a programming study for CoNHP.

Air Handlers

Dual Energy Recovery Wheels precondition incoming outdoor air and provide “free reheat,” significantly reducing HVAC energy usage

Efficient Systems

Air Quality

100% outdoor air (no recirculation of air) promotes healthy indoor environment

The Health Sciences Building features a variety of techniques to reduce the overall building impact on the environment.

High Performance

On-site Carbon Emissions reduced by over 60% and overall energy savings of over 40% compared to comparable, code-compliant building

Concrete

Locally sourced portland-limestone cement (PLC) reducing embodied carbon of concrete mixture

Landscaping

Landscape includes plants native to Pennsylvania and high-efficiency, low water irrigation system

Enhances community experience

daylight harvesting

Engaging Public Spaces

Advanced Building Automation Control Systems