Award of Merit - Higher Education

Ramapo College Dormitory

The easiest route to build the new 300-room dormitory at Ramapo College in Mahwah, N.J., would have been to put the 99,000-sq.-ft. building on the flattest part of a hill next to Interstate 287.

But with that layout, half the windows would have opened onto the highway and the primary north-south axis would have made the structure more difficult to heat and cool. That layout would also have required a long switchback walk to meet handicapped accessibility standards. And it would have required construction of a below-ground parking lot, increasing the project expense and severing the building's relationship to the ground.

So while the flat site may have made construction simpler, the project team took a more difficult route, which made all the difference to the awards jury.

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"I liked it because it's a former commuter school carefully going residential," said one juror. "They could have done it all wrong, but they did it right."

Dubbed the Overlook, the new building opened on schedule in September. The tallest structure on campus, it rises out of the slope in the narrowest part of the developable land. Instead of gazing upon the highway, the 295 students living there have dramatic views of the Ramapo Mountains and Kameron Pond.

Finding the right orientation for the facility presented a major challenge. Although the campus exceeds 300 acres, there is little developable land due to wetlands and wildlife habitat constraints. The steeply graded topography of the project site offered more complications, as did large boulders deposited on campus during the last ice age. An extra layer of complexity resulted from a five-month delay in the start of work, due to factors beyond the project scope. Even though the original 18-month construction schedule was already tight, the team still finished the $20 million dormitory in time for students to move in after Labor Day this year.

The building is a mix of precast concrete and glass. The precast is exposed in the interior and contrasts with textures and colors of the walls, carpets, and other details. On the exterior along the northern façade, insulated precast panels with punched windows provide additional energy efficiency, while along the south side, the building is more open with glass, inviting daylight and views.

A compact, eight-story structure, the Outlook has 72 suites, each with a sitting room and two double bedrooms with private baths. None of the parking is under the building, and the combination of its east-west exposure and the use of sunshades dramatically reduce the cost of heating and cooling the building.

On the outside are other project highlights. A concrete wall supports the entrance walk, which follows the contours of the land. The wall is at the edge of the wetlands buffer, allowing the building to fit into the hill without disrupting the natural landscape. The design also integrates the Ice Age boulder field, stabilizing the slope adjacent to the building and creating a design element for the entrance walk.

Though the site had no room for a detention basin for stormwater runoff, the project team opted to dredge the pond to create additional capacity. That environmental constraint turned into an asset, since the dredging alleviated silt buildup and became a boon to wildlife.