Student Union Expansion & Renovation
Student Union Renovation & Expansion – 65-30 Kissena Boulevard, Flushing, Queens, N.Y.
Recognizing the significance of student organizations to the personal growth and development of college students, George Ranalli Architect’s design for a major renovation and expansion revitalized the Student Union building at the campus large of an urban public college located Queens, New York. Since 1971, the Student Union – a 184,000-sq.-ft.Neo-Brutalist building – has been home to organizations and clubs and the campus newspapers and student government groups, but the student who used the building thought it was run-down, stark, over-crowded and too far from the public street access and the campus. George Ranalli Architect sought to remedy the building’s shortcomings and keep its structure in use while making modifications to meet contemporary needs. The project includes the renovation of existing lower floors and a 42,000-square-foot new building. Landscape architecture incorporates new courtyards and gardens into the Student Union facility and reorganizes the entrance to the campus from the public street.
The additional structure adjacent to the existing building creates space large outdoor courtyards to the east and shapes the outdoor area between the Student Union building and the main campus Quadrangle to create Student Court. Accessible via ramps and exterior staircases- the Court featuring a water element and outdoor café, to the west and southern by both the Student Union buildings is aligned to the campus footpaths to Jefferson Hall and Kiley Hall. Another outdoor space, Garden Court is landscaped with a grove of trees around a plaza featuring sculptural outdoor seating. At the eastern edge of the site, ramps and staircases connect to the network of pathways that circumnavigate the campus and lead to Kissena Boulevard and the newly designed 1,900-square feet car parking facility.
The redesign for the campus entrance relocated a public bus station a short distance without disrupting access to the essential connection to the MTA subway system and Long Island Rail Road. The move made enough room to create a grand entrance into the campus through a grove of trees. Our goal to conserve the Neo-Brutalist concrete structure was achieved with a major renovation of the interior of the ground floor, measuring approximately 10,000 square-feet, and alterations to upper floors to transform the cramped and outdated space into an appealing and highly functional immersive environment. The addition and the interior renovation of the existing building successfully met programmatic requirements for a 6,300 square-foot food court, 12 large seminar/ conference rooms, 37 club offices, a television station, radio station, media lab, and a dark room and production office for the campus newspaper and yearbook, plus a new 444-seat theater. The new facade, an active pattern of stone, copper, and raised block softens the stark Neo-Brutalist geometry of the existing building without disrupting its functionality.
