This building, whose sinuous form is a direct response to the agrarian site, the geology of the valley and the presence of the surrounding mountains, establishes the Dickinson School of Law at Pennsylvania State University’s University Park campus. The architecture draws from the idea that the law library is the theoretical and physical heart of the legal educational experience, the center in which students spend much of their time. As such, the library is conceived as a floating element, sheltering the rest of the School’s program beneath. The ground plane flows unimpeded, linking interior and exterior space and fostering a feeling of openness and accessibility emblematic of the School’s goals. Clad in glass, the curving library volume creates a constantly changing backdrop of reflected sunlight throughout the day and a beacon of light at night. Within, the library is conceived as a continuous looping circulation system, providing different types of study environments. Each of the two ends of the sinuous form is directed at a specific landscape: the periodicals room faces the adjacent arboretum, and the reading room is focused on the more distant Mount Nittany across the valley. Beneath this floating aerial form is its counterpart, an earthbound series of volumes clad in local sandstone, containing the classrooms, auditorium and courtroom. These elements surround a broad commons area that opens to the landscape and follows its stepping contours, directly connecting the School’s interior programs to the surrounding campus. Among the sustainable design features of the building are the abundance of natural day lighting in the building’s public spaces and a continuous planted green roof.
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