View of crescent courtyard from Payne Whitney Tower, photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO

Since its opening earlier this year,  KieranTimberlake's comprehensive renovation and addition to Morse and Ezra Stiles Colleges at Yale University has recieved a Gold Medal from the AIA Philadelphia Chapter, and was shortlisted in the New/Old Category at the 2011 World Architecture Festival. The following is the presentation that was made to the Festival Jury in Barcelona.

Location Plan (left), Berkeley College (top), Silliman College (bottom), photos © Halkin Photography LLC

Morse and Ezra Stiles Colleges are located at Yale University in Connecticut. Originally designed by Eero Saarinen, these two Residential Colleges were completed in 1962. Yale first developed its system of ten Residential Colleges in the 1930s as a way to encourage intellectual life beyond the classroom. Each College houses roughly 250 upperclassmen along with several faculty members, but the program also contains with its own Dining Hall, Library, Seminar Rooms, and art, music, athletic and meeting spaces, making the College a microcosm of the University. Most of the original College buildings were designed by James Gamble Rodgers in either a Collegiate Gothic or Georgian style, and were laid out as an assemblage of bar buildings enclosing a courtyard.

Saarinen with Model of Morse and Stiles, Source: Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library

In the late 1950s Saarinen was selected to design the 11th and 12th Colleges at Yale. He was inspired by the earlier stone masonry College buildings, but did not have the budget to pull it off. So, he was forced to innovate – something that Saarinen did very well. It is interesting to note that Saarinen was designing the TWA terminal in New York at the same time as Morse and Stiles, so his mind was very much focused on expanding the expressive use of concrete. Saarinen wrote of the Italian hill town as an inspiration for the master plan; the intimate residential scale, stone buildings and thin towers resonated as an appropriate precedent.

Full-scale model construction, 1958, Walkway to Payne Whitney Gym, Source: Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library

On the left is a mockup for the exterior wall. Note the young Cesar Pelli, who was a designer for Saarinen on this project. Saarinen’s idea was to create a cast concrete wall with large aggregate placed at the front of the form. When the form was stripped, a heavy power wash eroded back the matrix, simulating a mortared stone wall. In the end, the deep relief on the mockup was not achievable for the in-place walls, as the photograph on the right shows, with the tower of the main gymnasium framed at the north entry to Morse College.

Original Site Plan (left), Stiles Courtyard (right),  Source: Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library

The site plan shows the organic geometry of the complex, with each College being nearly – but not quite – a mirror image of the other. Stiles College is on the left, Morse on the right, with a passageway between them that is built over shared mechanical and cooking spaces. The concept remains true to the earlier Colleges in that the buildings frame a courtyard, but Saarinen extended his non-orthogonal building geometry to the landscape as well. The inner courtyards are particularly irregular, and the public courtyard along the road is framed by the crescent of the buildings. Each of the inner courtyards contains two four story residential wings that flank the Dining Hall, seen in the center of the image on the right of Stiles courtyard.

Existing conditions, 2006

What we found when we started the project in 2006 was a building by an iconic architect that had numerous flaws. Some of these were the cause of insensitivity to the architecture over time - such as the image on the lower right showing the installation of food serving equipment inside the Dining Hall, which is the premier interior space of the complex. However, many of the flaws were intrinsic to the original design. Though the buildings tended to fascinate other architects, users found them cold, awkward, dark and cramped. University administrators had grown tired of receiving petitions each year from students to transfer out of Morse and Stiles into one of the other Colleges.

So our guiding question for the project became, “How might the architecture, landscape, and program be re-visioned into a place of inspiration and welcome?”

Site Plan, courtesy of OLIN

We performed a feasibility study in which we benchmarked Morse and Stiles against the other Colleges and developed a program for a 2,400 square meter addition of student activity and kitchen spaces. Our solution was to build this additional space under the crescent courtyard. The exterior expression of Saarinen’s building was so strong, and the landscape spaces so distinctive, that we saw our role as transforming the Colleges from the inside out.

Aerial views of crescent courtyard, 1961 and 2011, Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library, © Peter Aaron/OTTO

The footprint of the addition covers about half of this courtyard, but we retained the basic courtyard form and the pattern of moving through it – a main central axis and a secondary walkway following the curve of the building but pulled forward to create a moat.

Detail of bridge and moat, © Peter Aaron/OTTO

The passage dividing the Colleges remains intact, but at the edge of the buildings we carved out a sunken court to bring light into the below grade spaces, adding a wide, heavy timber decked bridge to mark the transition and allow room to pause and look into the space below. Note the site walls that run parallel to the building are taken from the original cast concrete walls that formed moats around the complex. Since these had to be removed for the excavation of the addition, we had them cut into roughly two meter lengths, hauled off-site and then brought back to create the new moat wall. At certain intervals, new cast concrete walls frame skylights at the edges of program spaces below.

View of bridge and sunken courtyard, © Peter Aaron/OTTO

Hybrid plan, upper and lower level

One thing about Saarinen’s buildings here is that while they are highly figured in plan, they are basically extrusions of that plan. We wanted to expand that expression three dimensionally and create sectional interest in the vertical connection of spaces. The hybrid plan shows the flow of space from the inner courtyards through the lobby in each College and down to the addition. The shape of the rooms in the addition are rectangular - in contrast to Saarinen’s rooms of open angles - but by hugging close to the existing building and spreading apart where necessary to allow room for a tree pit, it is the new circulation that takes on a more organic geometry.

Stiles stair, © Peter Aaron/OTTO

The new stair connecting the Stiles lobby to the addition recalls the expression of the bridge over the sunken courtyard.

photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO

This is the view at the bottom of that stair. One complaint that students had made about Saarinen’s spaces is that they were very dark, so we knew that the challenge of our project was to create a series of spaces underground that also were filled with daylight.

 

photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO

Concrete is the main structural element of the addition, and typically we left it exposed. The board form finish of walls and corridor ceilings leaves the imprint of wood lagging, still commonly used in the US for soil retention. The concrete floor slabs were ground to expose some of the aggregate, then stained and polished.

Photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO

This is a view looking back to the stair leading up to the Morse lobby. Like most twins, the two Colleges look for ways to express their unique identity apart from the other, so we shaped the Morse stair very differently from the one at Stiles – this one as a winding mass as if it were carved from a solid block of concrete.

Photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO

Turning to look into the courtyard, where five birch trees soften the space.

Photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO

The wood planks are the same material used for the bridge decking. A wood patio is a common element in the US residential vernacular, signaling a space for socializing.

Photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO

The excavation required exposing the very rough existing wall footings, so we poured a smooth concrete cover over them, creating an abstract collage of masses that can be used for sitting along the edges of the space.

Photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO

One of the new art spaces in the project is a 120-seat theater, so this courtyard at times functions as gathering space before or after the show.

Photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO

This is one of the tree pits that accommodates a series of trees above, allowing them the soil depth needed to grow to a height that matches the 50-year-old trees in the courtyard above.

Photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO

This is a view  inside the dance room. On the left is a view into the fitness room beyond. The perimeter walls are battered retaining walls.

Photo © Richard Barnes

Here is the weight training room. The deep steel girders running beside the battered walls create a pocket where we inserted skylights at the top of the wall.

Photo © Richard Barnes

Here you see the effect of the grazing light coming in one of those skylights and bringing out the rich texture of the walls.

Photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO

Back outside the pattern of the skylights are read in the landscape.

Original common room (top left) Source: Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library, Renovated common room, photo © KieranTimberlake/Johann Mordhorst

Returning to the plan of the Saarinen building, we sought ways to enhance the existing social spaces and tie together the original and new pieces. This is the Common Room in Morse, which is the formal living room of the College, located just off the main entry lobby. Saarinen had created this abstracted rib-vault ceiling, but the space had only a small punched window and thus suffered as a dark basement space. We opened three of the coffers along the perimeter to bring in lots of daylight and also to add a sense of height to the room.

Photo © Richard Barnes

This is the expression of those skylights, which sit on a terrace overlooking the inner courtyard.

Plan and section

This last series of images is about the inner courtyards. The section shows how the landscape slopes down in each College towards the Dining Hall.

Photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO

While Saarinen created a very interesting courtyard geometrically, the near continuous slope did not anticipate the intense use of these spaces both for recreation and socializing. We inserted a retaining wall to allow for a broad, flat lawn, and then took advantage of the space in front of the Dining Hall to add a wood deck and water feature.

Photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO

We literally built the fountain around this sculpture by the artist Constantin Nivola.

Photo © Richard Barnes

We reorganized the space of the Dining Hall, moving out the serving equipment and then adding two new doors to connect to the exterior deck.

Photo © Richard Barnes

And finally, a view in the Morse courtyard looking over the new outside dining into Saarinen’s grand hall.

Project: Morse and Ezra Stiles Colleges
Client: Yale University
Architect: KieranTimberlake
Construction Manager for Construction: Turner Construction Co.
Construction Manager for Preconstruction: The Whiting-Turner Contracting Co.
Civil, Geotechnical and Environmental Engineers: URS Corporation
Cost Estimator: International Consultants, Inc.
Commissioning Agent: BVH Integrated Services
Landscape Architect: OLIN
Structural Engineer: CVM
M/P/E/FP Engineer: AltieriSeborWieber LLC
Food Service Consultant: Ricca Newmark Design
Lighting Consultant: Arup
Interior Designer: Marguerite Rodgers Ltd.
Environmental Consultant: Atelier Ten
Geotechnical Consultant: Haley & Aldrich, Inc.
Code Consultant: Bruce Spiewak, AIA
Specification Consultant: Wilson Consulting, Inc.
Waterproofing Consultant: Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc.
Elevator Consultant: Van Duesen and Associates
Theater Consultant: Theatre Projects Consultants
Signage Consultant: Strong Cohen