The new Ford Engineering Design Center is a 75,000 square foot addition to Northwestern University's McCormick Engineering School. It is a facility for teaching collaborative and creative multi-disciplinary work skills addressing the full spectrum of design themes in the school's undergraduate, graduate and professional curricula. The building contains flexible laboratory, classroom and project spaces for pedagogical design activities.
LEED Certified Silver
Davis Brody Bond, LLP
The new Ford Engineering Design Center is a 75,000 square foot addition to Northwestern University’s McCormick Engineering School. It is a facility for teaching collaborative and creative multi-disciplinary work skills addressing the full spectrum of design themes in the school’s undergraduate, graduate and professional curricula. The building contains flexible laboratory, classroom and project spaces for pedagogical design activities.
A linear atrium is the central organizing element, which contains the three above-grade levels of teaching space. Glass stair treads, glass railings and glass bridges in the sky-lit atrium allow natural light to penetrate all levels. The cast-in-place concrete frame structure is exposed; wood panels and wood windows add richness and warmth to the interior. The north end of the atrium is connected by a bridge to the existing academic facility’s second level. Next to the building’s entrance, landscaped terraces step from grade down to basement level, allowing natural light and views into a two-story shop area. Student models and experiments are assembled and displayed in this shop, which can be viewed from the street and the atrium’s first floor. The shop’s prominent location reflects the importance of the creative process and the collaborative spirit of the work being done within the building. The building is detailed to be a teaching tool that subtly exposes the building’s structure and mechanical systems. Registered for LEED Silver certification, the building has a green roof, an under floor displacement air system and a sun tracking device that controls automatic sunshades and lighting levels. A monitoring panel in the entrance lobby allows students to view the building’s systems and energy consumption.
One significant design challenge was to develop an image for the Ford Center that reflected the creative, high-tech work being developed there while making sure the structure fit seamlessly within the context of the existing collegiate gothic campus. This solution matches the scale of the neighboring buildings by keeping the height low, divides the massing into distinct volumes and details the transparent glass curtain wall to achieve a rich, vertical rhythm. The Design Center is clad in limestone to match the adjacent structures.