U Kentucky College of Design Shares Plans for Tobacco Warehouse Renovation — Spaces4Learning

Renovation

U Kentucky College of Design Shares Plans for Tobacco Warehouse Renovation

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 02/11/21

The University
of Kentucky has revealed the plans for its new College
of Design (CoD). The institution intends to renovate a
century-old tobacco warehouse and turn it into a “vibrant and
interactive learning space for design students.” The design was
done by Studio
Gang, in collaboration with Louisville-based
architect-of-record K.
Norman Berry Associates (KNBA).

As the university
explained, by placing the college into the Reynolds
Building, an old facility situated at a “prominent”
entry into the city of Lexington, the structure itself will “serve
as a nimble artifact that teaches students about architecture,
interiors, historic preservation, landscape architecture, urban
design, product design and biomedical engineering — all in a
21st-century, polycultural learning environment.”

According to the
designers, the plans build on the structure’s qualities, including
open floorplates and a repetitive structural grid, to maximize
interaction among people and disciplines and expand opportunities for
making and experimentation.

Open studio spaces
will leverage the timber column grid to demarcate each studio, and
use mobile pin-up walls for flexibility, along with custom furniture
designed and fabricated by the college’s students.

In certain areas,
the building will be cut away to create new gathering spaces,
sightlines, “abundant daylight” and vertical circulation. A
new, steel stair will be inserted into the center of the building,
surrounded by shared spaces and amenities — including a fabrication
lab, café and lecture hall.

Outside, a new
fabrication dock will provide space for large-scale making and
displays. New trees and a structural canopy will provide shade and
contribute to passive cooling inside the building. Geothermal wells
and other green strategies will also be used.

“At a time when
it is essential to conserve resources and decarbonize, the work of
reinventing existing buildings to serve new purposes has never been
more critical,” said Jeanne Gang, founding partner of Studio
Gang, in a statement. “The Reynolds project demonstrates this
idea, and takes it beyond environmental necessity, showing how re-use
can also be a satisfying, creative act of design and making.”

“The renovation
of the Reynolds Building for the CoD continues a firm legacy of
technical expertise combined with sensitive rehabilitation of
structures that contributes to our collective cultural, educational,
aesthetic and inspirational legacies — all of the things that quite
literally make us who we are,” added Bob Haffermann, managing
principal of KNBA.

“This move to
the former Reynolds Building allows the college to build a
sustainable and innovative atmosphere for the evolution of design
education and future generations of students while providing us the
room to grow in both scope and size,” noted College of Design
Dean Mitzi Vernon.