Dennis, Clark & Associates/TAMS
Athletic Quadrangle
perspective rendering (1988)
The result is an "athletic quadrangle" shaped by a parking garage, with integral stadium seating, on the north; and the dormitory and dining facility on the south. The field between is recessed at the foot of a six-foot earthen berm, an arrangement that Eliel Saarinen had used at his Cranbrook School for Boys (1926-1930). The parking garage shields campus activities from Forbes Avenue, and serves as a backdrop for Gesling Field. It has a high level of finish for such a facility, in order to mesh with the rest of the quadrangle and to mollify neighborhood concerns about its very existence.
The Dennis and Clark competition plan sited the dormitory and dining facility in a development zone along Margaret Morrison Street, but it was relocated to the south side of the athletic field when tennis courts were removed from the East Campus program. Here, raised on an earthen podium, it helps to shape the athletic quadrangle and to delineate the east-west axis between the hill dorms and the cut. The dormitory portion is split into two C-shaped buildings--Resnick Hall and West Wing--which are set side by side along the athletic field. The dining portion encompasses two geometric volumes at the east end of the complex. In the schematic design, these volumes were arranged freely on a one-story base. In the final design, they are pulled together and grafted onto the overall massing. A cruciform element is subordinated to a large polygonal rotunda. This rotunda is the main dining room, and anchors a pivot point in the pedestrian walkway.
The break between the dormitory buildings allows a cross-axial view into the stadium. At the break, engaged brick columns emerge iconographically from the walls to recall Hornbostel's vocabulary and wit. As for the architecture as a whole:
[The buildings] are successful as placemakers, strengthening every part of the campus they address...the architects used materials and forms similar to those of the Hornbostel buildings, but developed a language compatible with contemporary construction methods [and] gave the buildings just enough personality to engage the viewer while still allowing them to recede into the campus. (Branch 1991)
The East Campus project set the stage for the University Center. In turn, the University Center's gymnasium ultimately anchored the main axis of the athletic field and completed the athletic quadrangle.