The new Ross Commons at Middlebury College, Vermont, represents a new vision of student life on campus. It is the first of a new residential system for Middlebury, devised to provide a more supportive environment for students by enhancing both intellectual and residential life, and encouraging upperclassmen to continue to live on campus.
This 76,000 SF project includes 67,000 SF of new construction. Ross Commons and La Force Hall enhance residential life by localizing dining and student activities to a residential quad. Ross Commons provides dining, student activity spaces, and informal study and gathering areas; La Force Hall provides 85 residential units including 8 four-bed apartments with single bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom and living/dining area. Roughly 9,000 SF of renovations took place in areas where the new construction tied into an existing dormitory.
The design respects the college's distinctive architectural vocabulary and capitalizes upon the view corridors of the surrounding mountains. It also embraces sustainable design utilizing granite stone cladding, quarried through an environmentally low impact process; tinted, triple-glazed curtain wall systems and state-certified Vermont hardwoods culled from properly managed renewable forests for use inside the building. Air quality is high due to the selection of materials that do not emit volatile organic compounds. For this project TSKP STUDIO won the AIA/CT Design Award.