Salt Lake City, Utah

After creating an intensive programming purpose and process, as well as bedroom type configurations, Pollard Architects along with Sasaki Architects created various alternatives to a preferred site within the South Campus Housing Master Plan for Honors College Housing. The preferred alternative building layout is a five to six story,  three wing building over one level of podium parking which would contain all of the program with the exception of the Café/C store. The Café/C store is a separate two-story structure to the South-West corner of the site, that will serve future phases, expand if necessary, and be serviceable from Mario Capecchi Drive.

The three-wing concept, with central commons, was chosen because; first, by increasing the building footprint, the scale of the building is broken down; second, each wing becomes a smaller community within the overall housing community; and third, much of the program is able to surround the parking structure along with landscape elements, fitting the structure well into the context of the site. By wrapping the corner of the multi-purpose fields to the North-West, more apartments can take advantage of the view over playing fields and watch events which take place on it through out the year. A key element to the configuration, was the common knuckle space tying the three-winged dormitory rooms together. Common space reinforces Common purpose. We strove to link Fort Douglas historic landscape with the campus below. By including a transparent center, not only light but views as well reinforce the history of both places.

We were directed to provide the University of Utah with prescriptive plans, structural drawings with other consultant backgrounds, clear into Design Development, so they may deliver the project by way of Design Build for cost and timing purposes. A General Contractor would be chosen based on costs and an architect on the contractor’s team would finish the project with the construction documents following our design.