Our recently completed Ge Hekai Hall at Wenzhou Kean University (WKU) in Wenzhou, China is published in the current issue of Metropolis Magazine. It presents an academic building of exceptional scale and interdisciplinary mix, in an international campus setting.
Click here for a video tour of the building.
Campus activator: Ge Hekai Hall is an emerging building type for higher education in the 21st-century, in which multiple academic and research programs are gathered in one complex that forms a dynamic campus hub.
Global crossroads: As the flagship of a unique international joint campus — the partnership of Kean and Wenzhou Universities — Ge Hekai Hall is a setting for cultural as well as educational exchange. Its interconnected mix of disciplines includes Architecture, Industrial Design, and Computer Science, three areas of professional learning with tremendous potential influence on the future of life and culture.
Campus landmark: At the center of the main campus axis, facing a grand front quad, Ge Hekai Hall is effectively the face of WKU. Behind its super-scaled portico, a flexible matrix of classrooms, maker spaces, faculty suites, and open studios is layered around a great central hall — the Forum. This is a tiered, piazza-like interior landscape of seating that is overlooked by open balconies, stairs, and a bridge. In addition to being a community hub, social interaction space, and an extension of the classrooms, this key space also serves as an 800-person event venue. The Forum space brings the whole campus together for films, music/dance performances, exhibitions, and lectures.
Social fabric: Ge Hekai Hall’s 160,000 square foot, multi-function program is richly interwoven with outdoor space. Its lower two floors are composed as a set of 8 loft buildings, with open alleys between and roof terraces on top, creating a social and physical fabric that forms a platform for the dynamic set of open studios above, and an accessible, welcoming framework for student interaction both within the building and in the outdoor rooms around it.
