Campus conduit

Professor: Eric Hoffman

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Along the western edge of Missouri Western State University, Potter Hall sits alone, disconnected from the rest of campus. This proposal provides a new face for the School of Fine Arts, and a new visual destination which reaches out to the rest of campus.

 

The current identity of Potter Hall is a heavy, massive building with long, monotonous corridors. This proposal takes that identity into consideration by providing the school with a new building that sits in this context - heavy, grounded, and of the earth. The site location allows Potter Hall and the new addition to define a new campus-facing student terrace, an improvement on the existing student patio.

 

The interior of the addition reimagines the corridor as programmable space, where both circulation and performance are welcome.A grand stair in the lobby has the potential to be transformed to an informal perfomance space. The flexible studio can seat 150 for a classic theater perfomance, or retract all the seats to provide a more unique performance. Finally, the two spaces can become one by opening their partition, creating a truly transparent and programmable corridor.

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This comprehensive design studio investigated the transformation of the existing School of Fine Arts via a new typology: the Gray Box. Somewhere between a traditional black box theatre and a daylit studio for visual arts, the Gray Box is a multifunctional, multipurpose, and heavily used space for the Fine Arts school.