RICE UNIVERSITY CANNADY HALL
Rice University’s School of Architecture occupies a privileged site at the historical quadrangle of the campus characterized by its brick-and-stone Byzantine Revival buildings. The school had undergone multiple extensions over the years, including the iconic 1981 extension by James Stirling.
Cannady Hall brings an additional 22,000sf for production, exchange, and exhibition to the school. Complementing the existing building, the new facility adds new scales of spaces such as a fabrication hall, collaborative work areas, and a gallery that expand the impact of the school.
The design proposes a building that is unique yet contextual, respecting the layers of history while expressing a future forward image for the school. It starts with a connection that loops around the Stirling skylight and extrudes the existing roof profile over the arcade. That first gesture is repeated into a system of shifted bars that reinterprets the campus roofscape. All of a sudden what was seemingly massive, is broken down in scale, forming a series of outdoor spaces that activate between inside and outside. It reinforces the identity of the campus with its vernacular typology of arcades, porches, and stoops.
The terracotta façade with its changing cadences references the surrounding brick buildings and their decorative friezes. Produced from similar material process as brick, it is biodegradable and requires no maintenance. Inside, the building’s exposed structure is the robust framework for evolving activities, allowing the school to adapt to changing pedagogies while serving as a learning tool. The steel is bolted to allow for future disassembly, addressing the different time scales up to the building’s lifespan.
