Lewis Katz Building Dickinson School of Law
Created by Polshek Partnership Architects of New York City with Richard Olcott serving as style partner, campus of Dickinson School of Law, component of Penn State celebrates the opening of its new 114,000-square-foot Lewis Katz Constructing, a constructing that responds to the law school’s desire to create an inspired and engaging center for legal education on the University Park, Pennsylvania, United States. The focal point of the Lewis Katz Constructing is its glass-enclosed H. Laddie Montague Jr. Law Library with a volume capacity of 100,000 and seating for 294 students.The architecture draws from the idea that the law library is the theoretical and physical heart of the legal educational experience. As the center in which students invest a lot of their time, the library is conceived as a floating element, sheltered from the rest of the school’s program beneath. The ground plane flows unimpeded, linking interior and exterior space to foster the feeling of openness and accessibility emblematic of the school’s goals.The constructing was constructed to meet Leadership in Power and Environmental Design (LEED) certification requirements. Sustainable features include a green roof, daylighting in public spaces, operable windows and individual climate control in offices, and local and recycled-content materials.Within, the library is conceived as a continuous looping circulation program, supplying a number of different types of study environments. Each finish of the sinuous form is directed at a particular landscape, 1 close to and 1 far: the periodicals room faces the adjacent arboretum, and the reading room is focused on the much more distant Mount Nittany across the valley. Beneath this floating aerial form is its counterpart, an earthbound series of volumes clad in local sandstone that contain the classrooms, auditorium and courtroom. These elements surround a broad commons region that opens to the landscape and follows its stepping contours, straight connecting the school’s interior programs to the surrounding campus.The Lewis Katz Constructing was constructed to meet Leadership in Power and Environmental Design (LEED) certification requirements, utilizing several sustainable initiatives and local and recycled materials throughout its style. From its continuous planted green roof to its reintroduction of pervious surfaces on what was a massive parking lot, the constructing helps reduce the amount of rainwater runoff generated by the site. To reduce its power consumption, the constructing maximizes its use of natural day lighting in public spaces as its mechanical systems allow for operable windows and individual climate control in most of its individual offices.Extra constructing features include the 250-seat Greg Sutliff Auditorium; a courtroom equipped with the latest in trial technology; 4 75-individual classrooms; a number of intimate seminar rooms; legal clinic and student organizations suites; and outdoor terraces and reading gardens. As Marie Reilly, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of law at Penn State’s Dickinson School of Law, so aptly states, “Nearly every inch of the Lewis Katz Constructing is created to draw students and faculty together in a close community in which students develop the analytical, communication and interpersonal abilities the legal profession demands.”Olcott is also the lead designer for the law school’s new and renovated facility in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which will be completed later in 2009.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 19th, 2011 at 4:17 pm and is filed under architecture design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
