University of Houston Downtown Academic Student Services Building
Houston, Texas
Construction Cost: $18.5M
Completion Date: 1997
PGAL's design for the University of Houston's Downtown Campus Academic and Student Service Building in an historic old wharf area on Buffalo Bayou blends a functionally modern, high-tech facility with its surrounding historic neighbors. This expansion contains 168,000 square feet of new classrooms and student services accommodations. The core of the new building contains 30 classrooms equipped with state-of-the-art electronic infrastructure to support real-time computer-accessed learning, "distant" learning, multimedia origination and teleconferencing. They are supported by a commercial-grade multimedia digital studio that functions as a creative classroom, technical engineering lab, and as the center for broadcasts originating from the downtown facility. Student services and facilities are vitally important at any university to round out the higher learning experience, but doubly so at an urban-bound campus that is not supported by the predominantly business-oriented downtown Houston. With over 7,500 full-time students, a number that is expected to double within 10 years, facilities were needed to replace a demolished structure that served as the Student Service Facility. The new project provides over 50,000 square feet of student life community/UH joint functions, health services, and a magnificent 27,000-square-foot food court and adjoining coffee house. An adjacent, separate project adds a 35,000-square-foot fitness center.