Xavier University’s Board of Trustees approved the construction of a new residence hall and dining facility at its quarterly meeting on December 11.

The residence hall will house 530 students in suite-style living. The 800-seat campus-wide dining facility replaces the Hoff Marketplace dining hall where students now take all their meals. The 240,000 s.f. complex is scheduled for completion by the fall of 2011. Providing housing for an additional 500 students has been a priority for Xavier as a response to increased enrollment.

Locating the complex near the Student Center and existing residence halls will bring renewed energy and vibrancy to the core of campus while unifying the rest of campus, including ...[more]

DURHAM, NC – Duke Law School’s new Star Commons has been recognized for its highly sustainable design and operations, receiving LEED certification from the US Green Building Council. The light-filled Star Commons is highly energy-efficient, with vapor barriers for heat conservation and high-performance glazing. Great care was taken to recycle a high percentage of construction debris from the project, which also emphasized the use of materials low in volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

The 4,000 s.f. Commons was part of a larger addition and renovation project for the law school, which included a renovation of ...[more]

As designers it’s often hard to for us to articulate the power of great design to new clients. It’s exciting when the impact of design is recognized and called out by users, as we saw in a recent assessment of Duke University’s Link, the Duke Teaching and Learning Center that opened in the lower level of Perkins Library in August 2008. Designed to encourage collaborative work and project-based learning, the Link answers a bigger question: how do we learn and how can our environments best support this? The Link is the culmination of our extensive planning and partnership with ...[more]

DURHAM, NC – The Winter 2009 edition of Duke Law Magazine makes it clear: Law School faculty, students, staff, and alumni are all reveling in the new J. Michael Goodson Library and Star Commons. In the article, “From Library to Commons” writer Forrest Norman recaps the building’s November 8 dedication, which included a keynote address by US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Duke President Richard Brodhead is quoted as saying “When you reach the point where a great law school has a great building, you realize it wasn’t just an ornament. It really is an enabler of things.”

In the words of Duke Law alumnus George Krouse, “The combination of this ...[more]