Marist College Architecture

THE MARIST C O L L E G E S T O R Y: DEFINING A CAMPUS ROBERT A.M. STERN ARCHITECTS

KEVIN M. SMITH, AIA GRAHAM S. WYATT, FAIA PROJECT PARTNERS ROBERT A.M. STERN ARCHITECTS

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MARIST MASTER PLAN

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NORTH CAMPUS HOUSING

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HANCOCK CENTER

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CAMPUS GATES AND PEDESTRIAN CROSSING 20 2011

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JAMES J. McCANN RECREATION CENTER 60 2019

MURRAY STUDENT CENTER AND ROTUNDA 26 SCIENCE AND ALLIED HEALTH BUILDING

STEEL PLANT STUDIOS 50

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It is always our hope that, having contributed a building to a campus, we will be invited back. We are fortunate that our relationship with Marist College, under the leadership of President Dennis Murray, has endured for more than a decade and has

Above The Murray Student Center and Rotunda, looking southwest toward the Hudson River Valley.

produced more than half a dozen new buildings, additions, and renovation projects, along with elements of campus infrastructure that perhaps contribute as much to the sense of place as buildings.

Established by the Marist Brothers in 1905 on a bluff with magnificent views over the Hudson River Valley, Marist's earliest facilities were housed in "Hudson River Valley Gothic-style" outbuildings of former estates; later these were augmented by sparely detailed purpose-built academic buildings. Through the 1970s, as the college grew and broadened its aspirations, it added more ambitious buildings. When President Dennis Murray invited us to the campus in 2007, we proposed that the College focus on developing a strong architectural identity. We looked at precinctand campus-wide plans that allowed each individual building project to contribute to the collective whole. The result has been a campus that rises to the level of its extraordinary site, recognized today as among the most beautiful campuses in America.

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Above left The Kieran Gatehouse (1865).

Above right Greystone, the carriage house of the Rosenlund Estate when it was purchased by the Marist Brothers in 1908, today houses the President’s Office.

Left Marist’s North Campus Housing, the first phase of which opened for the fall 2016 term and the second phase of which opened in the fall 2019 term.

In our search for an expression appropriate to both Marist’s history and its future, we looked for a vocabulary that would give the Marist campus a distinctive and unified character. Our new buildings combine Hudson River Valley rubble-stone facades with red-brick trim, borrowing silhouettes and details from the few Hudson River Valley Gothic buildings that remained on campus and from the U.S. Military Academy across the river at West Point. Our first building for the college, the Hancock Center, set the tone for our subsequent work. Home to the computer science and mathematics departments and the respected Marist Poll, the Hancock Center was conceived as the first step toward defining a new quadrangle that would help center the college.

As that project progressed, we were asked to improve Marist’s presence on busy Route 9, which bisects the campus, with designs for new gateways marking the north and south entries, a central gate lodge, and a new pedestrian tunnel connecting the two halves of the campus.

In 2011, as the Hancock Center neared completion, we were asked to consider renovations and additions to Marist’s 45-year-old student center that would improve dining facilities and also support the college’s music programs. By wrapping the existing building and its 1994 addition on two sides with new construction we transformed what had been a much-disliked building into a positive expression of the campus. Key to the renovation’s success was the decision to cover an open courtyard to form an imposing new 550-seat dining hall, flooded with light from clerestory windows.

Our work at Marist continued with the Science and Allied Health Building on the east side of campus, and on the west side of campus with additions to the James J. McCann Recreation Center and four residence halls at its northern end providing accommodations for nearly 800 students. Our design for Marist’s Steel Plant Studios took a somewhat different track, taking cues from the repurposed industrial buildings to create a new east campus crossroads in the midst of a new creative hub.

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MARIST MASTER PLAN

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Below Master plan aerial rendering.

Blessed with a magnificent site overlooking the Hudson River, Marist College has, over the last 15 years, developed its campus with a series of new buildings and landscape initiatives that have brought the physical campus more into line with Marist’s growing academic reputation. Our update to the Master Plan was intended to provide a framework for future growth and development of the campus for academic facilities, student residences, and athletic and recreational facilities. It identified locations for future Marist facilities, without specifying the order in which the future projects might be developed, since these developments would necessarily reflect the College’s changing needs and the uncertainties of fundraising.

The Master Plan Update built upon the work of previous master planning efforts, especially the Master Plan of 2005, developed by SOM. Major elements of that plan are retained and elaborated. The 2005 Master Plan suggested an east-west green axis leading from the high ground of the east side of campus to the Hudson. The updated Master Plan adds to this east-west axis a formalized North-South greensward which unites the buildings around the Library and academic core. It suggests an enlarged but denser Academic Core, building on the quadrangle created by Hancock, Lowell Thomas, and Dyson, and amenable to future expansion to the west, overlooking the river. The update proposed a new arts precinct across Route 9, building on the success of the Steel Plant Studios, and leaving open the possibility of a theater complex off Fulton Street. The Update suggested an expanded student housing zone at the north campus gate.

We analyzed the open space on Marist’s campus, and recommended that it be categorized as three distinct types of green area—usable open space, such as quadrangles and courtyards with manicured landscapes; naturalistic open space, treated as nearly wild woodlands; and athletic and recreational open space. These distinctions will add to the richness of Marist’s landscape experience.

As in most college campuses, parking for faculty, staff, and students is a major challenge. Fortunately, Marist has three extremely suitable locations for parking structures, which can partially supplant existing surface parking. These locations are either on public streets, or very near to the main campus gates, thereby reducing automobile traffic within the campus proper. This will continue the progress made over the last two years in reducing through traffic through the central campus by the closure of the main gate and removal of car parking from the main academic quadrangle. The pedestrian nature of Marist’s campus is enhanced by its compactness—almost the entire developed area of the campus fits within a 10-minute walk radius of the Library, as would all the future development opportunities we have identified.

Finally, taking advantage of Marist’s defining physical feature—its location on the Hudson River—our plan recommended that future buildings on the west side of Route 9 be planned to create framed views of the river, similar to the magnificent view from the Library lawn.

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HANCOCK CENTER On a prominent bluff at the heart of the campus, the new home of Marist’s School of Computer Science and Mathematics overlooks the Hudson River and its magnificent valley. Rustic stone walls, red brick window surrounds, and limestone detailing carry forward the quiet Gothic architectural tradition established by the Marist Brothers at the turn of the twentieth century.

An L-shaped plan helps to better define two of the campus’s green spaces. A tower above the building’s main entrance serves as a beacon for the college, visible from the campus gates and from across the river.

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Below The east facade of the Hancock Center illustrates the palette we established for the campus, with large glass openings edged in red brick set into variegated Champlain stone facades.

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HANCOCK TECHNOLOGY CENTER MARIST COLLEGE POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK

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HANCOCK TECHNOLOGY CENTER MARIST COLLEGE POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK

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Opposite Limestone accents on the rubblestone facades highlight a corner window (top) and an exterior sconce (bottom).

Below An octagonal turret marks the southeast corner of the Hancock Center and the intersection of two campus quadrangles.

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Opposite A rubblestone wall extends to form an arched opening over a campus walkway.

Below The Hancock Center’s L-shaped plan shelters a west-facing terrace offering views to the Palisades across the Hudson River.

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Opposite A limestone arch frames the opening from the lobby to the main stair.

Right A student lounge complete with a fireplace.

Below The Office of Academic Affairs suite opens off the main lobby.

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Left The Student Investment Center.

Below The executive board room.

Right The first-floor gallery parallels the west-facing terrace.

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CAMPUS GATES AND PEDESTRIAN CROSSING North and south campus gates help identify the campus to motorists on heavily-traveled Route 9; the central gate, open only to emergency vehicles, is treated as a lodge in the tradition of the great Hudson River Valley estates. Portals inspired by the adjacent Kieran gatehouse, built in 1865, lead to a new pedestrian tunnel under Route 9 to connect the two halves of the campus.

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Left Marist’s Red Fox mascot is carved in limestone on the gatepost.

Below The south gate to the Marist campus adds hand-carved limestone to our palette of rubblestone and red brick.

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Opposite A view from the pedestrian underpass looking east to the Science and Allied Health Building.

Opposite below A guard house stands at the central campus gate.

Left An ironwork rendition of Marist’s historic “M� logo.

Overleaf The red brick-trimmed rubblestone west entrance to the new pedestrian crossing that runs under Route 9 to connect the east and west sides of the campus.

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MURRAY STUDENT CENTER AND ROTUNDA Sited on a bluff at the heart of the Marist campus, the Fusco Music Center — a new home for the music department — the Murray Student Center, and Rotunda wrap a 1960s brutalist structure.

An existing courtyard was enclosed to create a dramatically scaled dining hall lighted through clerestory windows.

The reimagined building carries forward the quiet Gothic architectural vocabulary of rustic stone walls and limestone detailing established by the Marist Brothers at the turn of the twentieth century and resuscitated in our work for the college.

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Below The new Fusco Music Center wrapped a bland modernist student center with the special dialect of Collegiate Gothic we developed for the Marist campus.

The reclad Rotunda is at right.

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Right Existing conditions, 2011 (top) and renovations completed, 2014 (bottom).

Opposite The Rotunda.

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Opposite Entrance to the Murray Student Center.

Left Symphonic Hall, in the Fusco Music Center.

Below Fusco Recital Hall, in the Fusco Music Center.

Overleaf New central dining hall, formerly an open courtyard.

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SCIENCE AND ALLIED HEALTH BUILDING Marist’s first academic building on the side of campus east of Route 9, the Science and Allied Health Building carries forward the palette of rubblestone walls, stone trim, and red-brick window surrounds previously established by our firm on the west side of the campus, beginning with the Hancock Center (2011). A three-story tower with an arched entry faces the pedestrian underpass designed by our office that runs below busy Route 9 to link the west and east sides of the campus. The new building serves a variety of clinical programs with specialized facilities including simulation suites, and it is equipped with advanced technology such as audiovisual data-capture for student-patient and facultypatient evaluations. The building also accommodates classrooms, offices, a conference room, and a double-height student lounge that commands campus views and affords glimpses of the Hudson River.

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Below A tower marks the entrance to the Science and Allied Health Building, extending our vocabulary to the east side of the Marist campus.

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NATURAL SCIENCE AND ALLIED HEALTH BUILDING MARIST COLLEGE POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK

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NATURAL SCIENCE AND ALLIED HEALTH BUILDING MARIST COLLEGE POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK

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Opposite A lower-level study borrows light from clerestory windows.

Left The stair hall.

Below The light-flooded entry vestibule.

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Opposite A double-height student commons occupies the tower above the main lobby.

Left An undergraduate biology lab.

Below A patient-care simulation lab.

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NORTH CAMPUS HOUSING The four-building North End Housing Complex, organized to serve as a residential neighborhood, accommodates 789 students in four-person, single-bedroom apartments. Framing both a formally landscaped south quadrangle and a north lawn intended for light recreation, the grouping consisting of John and Nancy O'Shea Hall; Lavelle Hall; Tom and Mary Ward Hall; and McCormick Hall is slightly splayed in plan to favor views across athletic fields to the Hudson River. Seminar rooms, common rooms, a fitness center, and an ancillary dining hall encourage circulation among the buildings. An affordable and efficient stone-clad panelized facade system enabled the buildings to continue the Hudson River Valley Gothic vocabulary of many of our other Marist College buildings.

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Below Aerial view looking east across the Hudson River.

Overleaf View north along John Winslow Drive, with McCormick Hall at left.

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Opposite View south along John Winslow Drive.

Left McCormick Hall’s West Tower.

Below Detail at south facade of John and Nancy O’Shea Hall.

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Opposite Entry to Tom and Mary Ward Hall.

Right Typical student room.

Below North End Dining in McCormick Hall.

Overleaf View looking west to the Hudson River across the lawn between John and Nancy O’Shea Hall (left) and Lavelle Hall (right).

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STEEL PLANT STUDIOS The Marist Steel Plant Studios create a new home for the college’s fine art, fashion, and digital media programs in a renovated 12,000-square-foot historic industrial building expanded with a 35,000-square foot addition. Departing from the Hudson River Gothic-inspired vocabulary of our other buildings at Marist, we adopted an industrial-modern aesthetic to complement the former steel plant, incorporating brick, steel, polished concrete, terrazzo, corrugated metal, and tile.

Perforated metal sunscreens patterned with the stylized “M” of the college logo pay homage to the building’s origins as a steel plant and at the same time suggest the fabrics and lace used in fashion design. The industrial aesthetic carries through to the interiors— key spaces include digital labs, fashion studios, sculpture studio, fashion exhibition gallery, art gallery, and an “Mporium” retail laboratory—with long clerestory-lit loft spaces, with exposed structure and movable pin-up partitions celebrating student work. The central winter garden features exposed brick and sliding carbon-steel doors.

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Below North facade.

Overleaf Main entrance.

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Left Existing conditions, 2016.

Below Renovations Steel Plant Studios, 2019.

Opposite View into senior studio.

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Opposite The MPorium (top) and stair hall looking to winter garden (bottom).

Below Lobby.

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Opposite Divisible classroom (top) and Sculpture Studio (bottom).

Below Winter garden.

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JAMES J. McCANN RECREATION CENTER The first phase of the James J. McCann Recreation Center Expansion project, completed in 2011, consisted of a 10,000-square-foot addition to the existing athletic center building. The expansion added team locker rooms, coaches’ locker rooms, players’ lounges, a video-editing suite, offices, conference rooms, and a screening room. The initial addition served as the first step in a plan to unify aesthetically disparate facilities into a coherent athletic precinct complementing the Hudson River Gothic of the Marist campus. The stone addition to the gymnasium significantly improves first impressions of the campus for those arriving from the south.

The recently completed second phase replaces an addition from the 1990’s. The new wing, housing health, wellness, and recreation spaces to meet the needs of today’s students, carries forward the quiet Gothic architectural tradition of Marist’s campus, connecting it visually to the rest of the campus.

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Below Entry.

Inset Existing conditions, 2017.

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Opposite Recreation gym (top) and Team weight room (bottom).

Below Student fitness center.

Overleaf View looking east across the Hudson River towards Marist College's campus.

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