2006 SCUP/AIA-CAE Awards

Honor Award for Excellence in Renovation or Adaptive Reuse

Bartlett Commons at The University of Chicago with Bruner/Cott & Associates, Inc. from Cambridge, Massachusetts

Click to view a pdf presentation of the project.

In the 1990s, The University of Chicago embarked on the creation of a new residential quadrangle at a key campus location. The site chosen included a 100-year-old historic landmark, the Bartlett Gymnasium.

After completion of a feasibility study and careful consideration of the potential challenges, the university decided to convert this landmark into an undergraduate dining commons.

While the existing Bartlett Gymnasium was an imposing and refined gothic limestone structure, it had outlived its useful life and was out of compliance with present day energy, code, and accessibility requirements impacting student use and occupancy.

The primary challenge was to insert new technologies and accommodations while maintaining sensitivity to preserving the existing historic fabric of an old gymnasium with landmark status.

The jurors thought this project was "a great and exciting change of usage. It was very nicely restored."

The program includes a modern foodservice operation: dining rooms, exhibition cooking servery, production kitchen, and storage areas, as well as 10,000 square feet of new student activity areas for events, performances, offices, and informal lounge spaces.

In addition to the dining hall, the existing racquetball and swimming pool space was converted into a campus market, music and dance rehearsal spaces, a lounge, and student activities offices.

Students responded with enthusiasm and appreciation. The reuse of significant campus buildings is often the most fitting tribute to the university's communal identity.

"The completed Bartlett Commons enjoys enthusiastic student usage and is seen as a great success by the university community as a whole," says Kenneth Park, Senior Project Manager in Facilities Services at the University of Chicago.

The completed project effectively satisfied two stated social goals that were seemingly in conflict at the programming phase. It was important for the new commons to encourage a new spirit of cross association as a gathering place for the entire university community, and yet serve to reinforce the identity and social experience for the undergraduate community and smaller scale residential "houses."

The design included many interesting technical features. The building's highly-detailed gothic limestone veneer needed substantial restoration.

The design also includes sustainable features including a newly installed, energy efficient, full-length skylight that fills the space with daylight.

A comprehensive salvage program integral to the engineered addition allowed harvesting of large quantities of the original, 100-year-old limestone for the repair of the existing structure from areas of the building to be covered by the new addition.

Additional materials that were saved and reused include the wooden gymnasium floor, iron and oak doors, and other period artifacts. Double-glazed, energy-efficient glass was designed to replace the original windows.

A venerable campus landmark, and an esteemed symbol of school history and pride, has been adaptively reused to serve as a centerpiece for undergraduate life.

By effectively managing the construction expenditures, a number of relatively expensive, but important gestures of high quality which appropriately blend with the existing historic fabric of the building were able to be incorporated.

Project Team

Kenneth Park
Senior Project Manager
Facilities Services
University of Chicago
kdpark@uchicago.edu

Daniel Raih
Bruner/Cott and Associates
draih@brunercott.com