Morgan State University’s new Student Services Center gathers the school’s previously dispersed administrative service functions under a single roof to establish a welcoming ‘one-stop’ access point for current and prospective students. The building is designed to enhance the student experience, with reception areas and service desks organized along a series of flowing, multi-storey lounges with ample seating, study and collaboration spaces. In addition to the architectural services, Teeple Architects also provided signage, wayfinding and furniture consulting for this project. With its main entry located at street level, a full storey below that of the campus commons, the building is partially embedded into a hillside. A large landscaped arrival court invites students and visitors towards the main entry where monumental stairs, both interior and exterior, mark a formal procession up to the campus commons level. The landscape encircling the building makes use of terraced ‘rain-gardens’, heavily planted bio-retention features designed to passively meet Baltimore’s stringent storm water management requirements.
Behind the generous student-facing areas, much of the building is occupied by administrative offices with cutting edge collaboration spaces and meeting rooms. Departments are organized around a secondary atrium that allows natural light deep into the large office floor plates. The building is situated between the historical campus quad, with neoclassical buildings to one side and the modern university commons, with diverse post-war architectural styles to the other. Teeple Architects were tasked with designing a building that helped transition between the two campus styles while providing an iconic ‘front-door’ to the University. Much care was given to find a limestone cladding that would blend with the Maryland field stone on the older adjacent buildings while allowing for a more contemporary architectural expression desired by the client.
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