 “Back to the Lawn”:
The Capital Campaign for the McIntire School of Commerce is moving forward on a number of significant fronts, including plans for a groundbreaking
ceremony slated for spring or early summer of 2005. The event will celebrate the construction phase of McIntire’s ambitious and important building project, which involves a 156,000-square-foot academic complex at the southeast end of the Lawn, integrating the complete renovation of Rouss Hall, McIntire’s former home, with the construction of a new building behind Rouss. The new 132,000-square-foot structure will front Hospital Drive to the east and border Randall and Wilson Halls to the north and south, respectively. Two classrooms in Rouss Hall will be shared with the College of Arts & Sciences as a primary location for a variety of world-class collaborative programs. The College will expand into the 67,000-square-foot Monroe Hall, McIntire’s home for the past
30 years.
The Commerce School plans to move to its new home in August 2007. Work on the project is already under way, with Varsity Hall being prepared for relocation to the
southeast of Randall Hall.
Competing at the Top
The move is vital for a number of reasons, says McIntire Dean Carl Zeithaml. “Very simply, in addition to increasing pressure to compete with our peer institutions for top students and faculty, more space is needed to deliver our world-class business programs,” he says. “To offer the best in business education, schools require state-of-the-art classrooms and labs and high levels of technology, including an environment that simulates the business world. The existing building does not allow for further expansion of our programs
and therefore inhibits our ability to offer more programs to a wider group of students. The new building will provide an environment to allow McIntire to continue to compete at the very top of the business school rankings.”
Winning Design Team
The School assembled a design team that includes some of the most creative and innovative architects in America.
Hartman-Cox Architects, of Washington, D.C.,
created the architectural design for the renovation of Rouss Hall and much of the new structure fronting Hospital Drive. The Hartman-Cox portfolio of projects also includes the restoration of the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials and the restoration and remodeling of the National Archives, the Museum of American Art, and the National Portrait Gallery.
Nelson Byrd Woltz (formerly Nelson Byrd Landscape Architects) is designing the building’s courtyard area. The firm’s deeply thoughtful, integrated design approach draws from the inherent ecological and cultural systems of a place and explores the sustainable design potential of each.
Olin Partnership is providing the exterior landscaping. The company has directed some of the most extraordinary transformations of the human environment in the last several decades. Olin Partnership aspires to raise landscape architecture, an art with ecological and social responsibility, to the most influential field in the design and planning of human settlements. Through award-winning work on public, private, and institutional commissions, Olin Partnership defines a vision for landscape architecture that is artful, compassionate, and
timeless.
Learn About “Back to the Lawn”
To reach this milestone took significant effort on the part of staff, faculty, alumni, and friends. In many ways, the groundbreaking ceremony will merely signal the importance of continued dedication, support, and teamwork. To learn more about this exciting and important project and ways you can participate, visit
http://www.commerce.virginia.edu/Building/.
|
