Architect |

Collaborating Architect |

Structural Engineer |

General Contractor |

Completion |

Kirksey

Barkow Leibinger

Ensight Haynes Whaley​

Anslow Bryant

January 2021

Ensight Haynes Whaley was the structural engineer of record for the Sid Richardson residential college, completed in 2021. The 148,000 square foot residential college is a trio of linked structures (two, five, and 12 stories) that sit alongside the building it was commissioned to replace, a 14-story tower. The complex’s dynamic interiors are the common areas that link the three buildings at their lower level, in particular the dining hall—a 300-seat space defined by a triangulated grid of concrete columns and exposed ceiling beams. A lattice of wood slats between the concrete beams provides acoustical dampening and is equipped with strip lighting set slightly askew to create a bit of visual play. 

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The college provides “Sidizens” with 97 double units (each with its own bathroom) and 118 singles (which share common bathrooms), the dining hall, a duplex magister’s apartment, and three apartments for advisors. While the 12- and five-story structures are mostly residential, the two-story building houses workshops and makerspaces, with a roof terrace that serves as a central social space for the college. It is shaded by a space-frame pergola of blackened steel, with slats in fan formation, its language borrowed from the concrete frame of the lower levels.