Architecture Students Propose NJIT Master Plan, New Building Designs
It is a long-standing practice within architecture studios to assign real-world projects to students as they develop the skills to build for the future. In a studio taught by Associate Professor Darius Sollohub, the reimagining of the Mueller Florist Supplies site continues this practice.
Hillier College faculty and students often take on Newark-based projects in order to contribute to the planning and development of the city they study in. The products of these design studios have been integrated within the Newark Design Collaborative, with the goal of contributing design expertise to city government planning agencies and engaging with the community, while also giving students real world design challenges.
Located at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Central Avenue, the Mueller’s site was recently acquired by NJIT. It is the university’s intention to build a campus threshold building on the site to complete the campus perimeter, while also complimenting the Sigma Pi fraternity house that will remain. It will provide a prominent formal passage with an atrium to the inner campus and serve as an information commons, providing access to an admissions suite for prospective students and their families, a host of technology-rich flexible classrooms and student-community spaces.
In this case the clients that students are designing for are the NJIT Real Estate Development and Capital Operations office, taking into account a wide field of NJIT stakeholders, such as the university leadership, students, faculty and the local business community.
As described in the course outline, students must take into consideration multiple requirements for the development of this site: accommodation of the adjacent properties, Rutgers campus, St. Michael's Hospital, Eberhardt and Cullimore Halls, the Van Houghton Library, adjacent streets and parks, foot and vehicular traffic, and a mixed range of older urban fabric. The impact of the building on the surrounding streetscapes will be considerable and students will go well beyond the site to propose various ways by which the campus landmark can be traversed as an amendment to NJIT’s Master Plan.
Architecture students Rheanna Quagliariello, Leo Gehrman, Broderick Ramirez and Paola Gonzalez presented an extensive site analysis that included the master plan revisions. Prominent among these are the extension of Sussex Park with a pedestrian area and bike path, the complete pedestrianization of Summit Street with a tree corridor and a new underground parking structure designed to service both the new building and the Campus Center.
Architecture major Jalaysia Stevenson noted, “I really liked going into groups and developing the master plan of the school. I also liked that we were given constraints to develop a project that would be presented to clients.”
The studio worked collectively and sought direction from an assembly of NJIT administrators, faculty, staff and students. Andrew Christ, NJIT’s senior vice president for Real Estate Development and Capital Operations, served as the liaison to the studio. Christ said of the studio, “The creativity of the Hillier College of Architecture and Design students is incredible. I enjoy being able to create a real-world, client-designer relationship for them.”
Paralleling professional practice, students interviewed their clients to determine the “program” for the development, that is, what types of spaces, activities and functions are required within the space. Next they researched the site producing location plans, site plans, 3D models showing pedestrian and traffic circulation, public spaces and parks in order to propose changes.
“From my perspective as a student in my first option studio, this project surprised me in that I had the ability to not only alter the site, but to alter the surrounding streets as well. The master plan arrangement and the ability to change the master plan was a new concept to me that added to the layers of architectural design,” said architecture student Fang-Chen Jen.
Because NJIT already has a master plan in place for the development of the campus, students were also required to propose changes to that plan to facilitate integration of the new building within the campus and suggest improvements to existing plans. Many of these plans connected the new building with bridges to the adjacent building, included rooftop spaces and all incorporated an atrium to allow air and light into the interior of the building.
Gonzalez said “I really enjoyed this studio, it gave me a closer look as to how client-architect relationships can be. I enjoyed having a sense of client, in this case, Andrew Christ. From dealing with a difficult site typography to remaining respectful of the Sigma Pi fraternity house, the project was a great challenge overall but it had a great outcome!” Student Weihao Lin used the concept of highlander as inspiration commented, “I think everyone has their unique designs, they help you to imagine outside the box.”
Emergent strategies for educational spaces for a variety of NJIT departments will be applied to the facility, addressing how spaces will be designed for a post-pandemic environment, while meeting the highest standards for environmental sustainability. The mission of the studio is to craft a structure that expresses the ethos of NJIT’s education mission and vision for the 21st century. For an end-of-semester presentation of Hillier College work to outside critics, students and faculty selected three individual projects to represent the class: those by Rohan Tiwari, Alexander Kwok and Michael Rivera. See the student gallery here.
The new facility will likely be built later this decade, thus giving students a chance to make a profound contribution to the eventual outcome. “The ideas from the students will be shared with the eventual design team to provide them with inspiration,” Christ added. “This is more than a traditional owner’s program document and will result in a much better project for NJIT”.
“This project felt more real than previous projects I have worked on in school. That this is something that could become a reality — whether it be 10-15 years from now — is really special. I think as a class we treated it like it was a real project and each of us hit upon pieces that combined could really give NJIT an idea of what they want,” said Quagliariello.
