Princeton University | Engineering Suite

The age of a university’s building catalog may span a century or more. In an era of sustainability, limited resources, and increasing construction costs the need to revitalize existing buildings has never been more critical. Since 2005, renovated construction as a share of total construction has increased 15%, representing 50% of total construction dollars spent in 2019.

At Princeton University, an under-utilized storage room and former mechanical engineering shop has been re-designed for a very twenty-first century engineering use: a computational design lab and collaboration space. Workbenches that housed drill presses and mechanical tools give way to bench workstations and informal work areas where graduate students and principal investigators can move from focused individual study to full lab meetings that engage researchers in other parts of the world via video conference.

The basement space was quite literally a windowless hole. As such, the design sought to maximize the vertical dimension of all the rooms by creating an “indoor sky” that employs a soft palette of pale blue and careful lighting design. A palette of light oak wood detailing adds a degree of domestic warmth to the space, carefully coordinating limited custom millwork with the University’s contract furniture system selection. Rather than bury the existing concrete masonry unit walls, the design paints them in a pattern of color, coordinated to white boards and tackboards, that enable the subtle visual texture of masonry joints to become an asset to the space.

A small pantry wraps around a major structural column and pipe chase, giving the space a much-needed social center away from focused thinking but accessible to all.

Princeton, New Jersey

Design Completed 2020 (Pending)

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The graduate research assistants are collected in a wooden bullpen of sorts. The workstations rely primarily on contract furniture systems to adhere to the University standards. In order to breathe life and warmth into the windowless space, a carefully detailed collection of white oak millwork shelving units and screen walls unifies the work areas. Each unit contains research materials, high power computers, plants, and other personal effects.

Upon entering the workspace, a generous open floor plan leads to a small café area, conference room, and a series of cubbies for coats and bags. The existing mundane, concrete masonry unit walls are animated with bright painted color-blocking. New light fixtures add brightness and scale to the space.

The café includes simple shelf space that echo the graduate desk area and an oversized perch table that doubles for small meetings.

The collaboration room is wired for audio, video, virtual markup capabilities. All walls are designed with tack surface and marker boards to enable focused as well as group ideation. The ceiling is an array of recycled plastic baffles that attenuate sound and hide ceiling infrastructure.