Hamilton College
Innovation Center
Project Overview
- New construction adjacent to occupied existing campus buildings and will require the relocation of the admissions parking lot prior to construction
- Integration of a new high speed server room to meet current and future needs of campus faculty and students
- Stone and precast façade to match existing campus buildings, atrium space with bleacher seating and expansive windows and skylight
Hamilton College is a liberal arts college located in upstate New York. The addition of the Innovation Center will result in constructing a modern and sustainable facility, serving as aflexible and technology-enabled hub for interdisciplinary research for students. The center will also give Hamilton’s growing computer science program a place to expand its reach.
The forward-thinking addition to College Hill, which will connect with Burke Library thanks to an enclosed area beneath the new terrace, will feature a central atrium (“mixer hub”) with bleacher seating, a digital gallery, and a hybrid teaching and meeting space. A new makerspace, the second on campus, will offer laser cutting, wood working, metal working, and 3D printing. Two flexible classrooms, two lecture labs, four teaching labs, five research labs, a motion-capture AR/VR studio, a seminar room, 10 offices with dedicated tutorial space, and multiple open areas designed for collaboration, will comprise the rest of the facility.
The building will be constructed with a stone-clad, steel-framed structure, a flat membrane roof, a central skylight, and large glass openings framed by custom-fabricated precast and ultra-high-performance concrete window surrounds and fins. The center’s prominent glass facades and interior glass panels will immerse the space in natural light. Furthermore, as part of the project, a main utility serving the entire campus will be relocated from underneath the admissions parking lot before the start of construction.
