PHILADELPHIA, Penn. — Construction on New College House West, the University of Pennsylvania’s (Penn) new 250,000-square-foot residential building, is currently underway.

The $163 million project will be designed specifically as an undergraduate college house, part of Penn’s residential system of shared communities.

The new undergraduate college house will occupy a site bounded by Locust Walk, Walnut Street and 40th street, adjacent to the West Philadelphia branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, which will remain open.

“This exciting project will serve as a new western gateway to campus,” said Penn President Amy Gutmann. “Since the College House system was introduced in 1998, it has become enormously successful, forming intellectually dynamic and supportive, shared communities within the larger Penn community. Life in a college house has come to define the undergraduate experience at Penn, providing learning and co-curricular opportunities outside of the conventional classroom.

“New College House West will enable more Penn students to participate in the College House system, and it will also give us the capacity and flexibility to continue renovating existing student housing.”

Designed by Philadelphia-based, internationally-renowned Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Architects, the firm that recently completed the New College House at Hill Field, the three-year 450-bed residence will house sophomores, juniors and seniors. With a mix of six- and five-bedroom two-bath suites and four-, three- and two-bedroom one-bath suites, New College House West will also provide many programmatic common areas including study, living, seminar and music practice rooms.

The project will target LEED Silver certification and its design introduces both a private courtyard for residents and green roofs and maintains public green spaces adjacent to Locust Walk, north of Harrison College House and east of Rodin College House, as well as the space near Gregory College House. These common green spaces are openly accessible to public pedestrian access and available as gathering spaces and for University and community events.

The project began construction in spring of 2018 and is expected to open for occupancy in Fall 2021.

PHILADELPHIA, Penn. — Construction on New College House West, the University of Pennsylvania’s (Penn) new 250,000-square-foot residential building, is currently underway.

The $163 million project will be designed specifically as an undergraduate college house, part of Penn’s residential system of shared communities.

The new undergraduate college house will occupy a site bounded by Locust Walk, Walnut Street and 40th street, adjacent to the West Philadelphia branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, which will remain open.

“This exciting project will serve as a new western gateway to campus,” said Penn President Amy Gutmann. “Since the College House system was introduced in 1998, it has become enormously successful, forming intellectually dynamic and supportive, shared communities within the larger Penn community. Life in a college house has come to define the undergraduate experience at Penn, providing learning and co-curricular opportunities outside of the conventional classroom.

“New College House West will enable more Penn students to participate in the College House system, and it will also give us the capacity and flexibility to continue renovating existing student housing.”

Designed by Philadelphia-based, internationally-renowned Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Architects, the firm that recently completed the New College House at Hill Field, the three-year 450-bed residence will house sophomores, juniors and seniors. With a mix of six- and five-bedroom two-bath suites and four-, three- and two-bedroom one-bath suites, New College House West will also provide many programmatic common areas including study, living, seminar and music practice rooms.

The project will target LEED Silver certification and its design introduces both a private courtyard for residents and green roofs and maintains public green spaces adjacent to Locust Walk, north of Harrison College House and east of Rodin College House, as well as the space near Gregory College House. These common green spaces are openly accessible to public pedestrian access and available as gathering spaces and for University and community events.

The project began construction in spring of 2018 and is expected to open for occupancy in Fall 2021.

The post Penn’s New Residence Facility on Schedule for 2021 Opening appeared first on School Construction News.

PHILADELPHIA — The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) in Philadelphia held a grand opening event on Oct. 28 for its new 58,000-square-foot innovation lab, cleverly dubbed Pennovation Center. Previously owned by DuPont, the building was transformed into a combination of wet labs, co-working areas and social spaces. These key design elements were created to serve three purposes: to make the facility a catalyst for learning, an incubator for commerce and a beacon for the community.

The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia held a grand-opening event on Oct. 28 for its new 58,000-square-foot Pennovation Center.“This is a unique business and technology incubator where innovators’ ideas go to work,” said Anne Papageorge, vice president of Penn Facilities and Real Estate Services, in a statement. “The center is designed to bring together the university’s eminent researchers and students, along with the private sector, to foster creative exploration, entrepreneurship, new alliances and generate economic development for the region.”

New York-based Hollwich Kushner served as the project’s design architect, while locally based KSS Architects was the architect of record. The building’s angular facade reaches outward towards the Schuylkill River, with a plaza situated in the center that features a combination of fixed and moveable seating. With approximately 200 desks distributed throughout, the building’s interior also features several components that help encourage innovation: ample break spaces; wide, daylit hallways that double as program spaces; and flexible, moveable furnishings.

“Entrepreneurs thrive on invention,” said Matthias Hollwich of Hollwich Kushner in a statement. “That means a lot of dedicated time spent in labs hunched over workbenches and computers. We wanted to create a building that encouraged the innovators to get up from their desks, to pitch their ideas and socialize with their colleagues. That’s why we took all of the social action of the building and packed it into the spiky geometric façade.”

Since opening, 20 different companies and more than 150 individuals — researchers in pharmacology, medicine, robotics and environmental studies — have already taken up shop in the Pennovation Center. The first two floors of the building incorporate the co-working spaces, wet labs and shared amenities. The third floor is home to the Penn Engineering Research and Collaboration Hub (PERCH), designed to help the university create lab-to-market technologies that will transfer in areas such as robotics, the “Internet of things,” embedded systems and other emerging domains of interdisciplinary engineering.

PERCH is a space designed to encourage active learning, project-based learning and connected learning. For instance, students can collaborate on a larger-than-life robotic arm, a pet-sized robot that can jump and a GPS-robot hybrid technology that can navigate indoor spaces, according to a statement.

The Pennovation Center is this first phase of the larger-scale, 23-acre Pennovation Works development. The area was once a heavy industrial site that now supports the research and entrepreneurial mission of both university clients and third-party commercial tenants. Landscaping for the site will include stormwater management, increased connections between buildings and access to the Schuylkill River trails, according to the project website.

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