School of Business

This 100,000 square foot building is a state-of-the-art facility for UConn's School of Business Administration. One of the most popular departments at the university, the school teaches over 3,000 students a year. With this heavy traffic, the building is zoned with undergraduate classrooms on the lower two floors and faculty and graduate student facilities out of the hubbub on the upper two floors.

Client

University of Connecticut

Location Storrs, CT
Size 101,000 Sq. Ft.
Program classrooms, teleconferencing classroom, breakout rooms, laboratory, offices, cafe
Year Completed 2001
Photo Credit Jeff Goldberg/Esto, Chuck Choi, Derek Hayn/Centerbrook
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The School of Business Administration has a variety of teaching, meeting, office, and social spaces. Completely wired for laptop connections, all of these spaces integrate technology into the curriculum and allow constant technological alterations, mirroring the realities of the changing business world.

There are 13 classrooms, a teleconferencing classroom, and breakout rooms with video cameras, microphones, and television monitors to record presentations for later review and critique. A 40-seat board room on the third floor is used for video conferences and meetings with visiting executives. The management information sciences research laboratory has 20 workstations with work areas and servers. There are offices for faculty members, departmental offices, and offices for the School's institutes and centers. In order to reinforce faculty interaction, the school's departments of accounting, finance, management, marketing, and information management each have their own satellite offices with constellations of their faculty offices nearby.

The building's two wings form a south-facing courtyard. Café tables, chairs, benches, and flowering shade trees fill the court and provide the school with an informal gathering place and community center. Each wing has its own entrance with a multi-story sun-filled atrium. The taller atrium is student oriented, with message boards, student activity offices, and an adjacent café. The café is a 40-seat multi-purpose space adorned with international flags that looks out into the courtyard. It is located near the entry to attract students and faculty for the informal meetings that are always an important complement to class work.

Finishes throughout the building are handsome and durable. Greenstone wainscots and flooring line the classroom hallways. The atria are lined with glass in a random pattern of clear, frosted, and backlit glass. Maple stick ceilings warm the spaces while absorbing noise. Maple paneling, doors, and desks also add to the high degree of finish, welcoming a highly admired faculty and preparing students for their transition to the glamour of the corporate world.