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Architects: Architecture Research Office
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Photographs:Paul Warchol
Text description provided by the architects. A strategic intervention, this Addition re-centers the Princeton School of Architecture. Enclosed in glass and steel, the Addition links the School’s two-story south wing, where its administrative offices and library are located, to the three-story north wing’s studios and classrooms. Princeton students have nicknamed the building the “Hyphen”.
The Addition contains a new lobby, student lounge, elevator, and cantilevered steel stair. Plan and section take their dimensions from the existing 1963 building: the Addition aligns with the existing floor levels and, on the exterior, translates the rhythm of the existing building’s window bays. Large glass panels, with varying ceramic frit patterns overlaid like folds in a curtain, comprise the Addition’s envelope. The frit pattern affirms formal characteristics seen in the building, uniting the glass and steel Addition with the existing building, while also providing solar shading for the third floor lounge. The elevator shaft, painted shades of blue, forms the background against which the stair and the frit pattern are seen.
The project scope also included renovations throughout the existing building to update the School of Architecture with a new model shop and facilities for a three-dimensional printer.
