McKelvey Hall creates a flexible, interdisciplinary, energy-efficient, and sustainable environment for world-class computational research and education. Designed for adaptability and rapid change, the new home of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering provides a model for interdisciplinary collaboration, fostering student engagement and high-impact research.

Replacing a vast surface parking lot, the new building is sited at a prominent corner of the historic campus along a formal allée, anchoring a vehicular entrance and framing the historic axial view toward the campus center.  The new building, which physically connects to an existing collegiate gothic campus building, strives for resonance with its context and its place. The outer perimeter responds to the university’s masonry and collegiate gothic architecture and features a combination of Missouri red granite and limestone, while a newly formed inner courtyard adopts a transparent and informal language, reflecting the innovative research taking place inside the building and simultaneously responding to recent contemporary campus additions.

The building’s interiors echo this duality, with internal spaces for offices and administration synced to the building’s traditional collegiate gothic exteriors, and an open, flexible concept providing a dramatic window into the contemporary, state-of-the-art computational research work areas via the courtyard-facing, multi-story curtain wall.

Various research disciplines are connected to one another with a series of communicating stairs that come together in the Commons.

Sustainability is a key focus for Washington University, which seeks an integrated design process that incorporates the principles of sustainable design with attention to energy efficiency, low impact materials, reuse and recycling, quality and durability, and health and wellness. “The client had a thorough and comprehensive plan for sustainable operations on campus,” Perkins Eastman senior designer Jennifer Romeo says. “We worked with them to identify what that would mean for McKelvey Hall in detail and how we could raise the bar for not only this project, but future projects.”

In support of these goals, the project had a rigorous focus on material health through a collaborative process involving the university, the contractors, consultants, and Perkins Eastman.

This evolved into a rigorous process of vetting every material selected for McKelvey Hall, which was screened against a multitude of variables including the LEED v4 requirements; Red List chemicals; healthcare-level standards outlined in the Healthier Hospitals Initiative; and the WELL Building Standard. As an example of one of the results of this process, in the Bytes cafe, the design team reclaimed wood from an allée of pin oaks that had to be taken down for construction, and incorporated them into tabletops and shelving. In addition to choosing healthy, sustainable fabrics and furniture, the team also recycled furnishings from the department’s previous building.

Beyond materials, the team designed for wellness of people and wellness of planet in tandem. One prominent example is the the western-facing courtyard façade; the design team conducted extensive solar radiation and glare analysis (above) to develop a shading system that provides ample natural light and mitigated glare. The system combines with a high-performance façade design to promote both energy efficiency in tandem with student productivity and well-being.