All the "Lego pieces" are now in place. The Johns
Hopkins University
Bloomberg School of Public Health officially unveils
this week the 12-year construction and renovation project
that has nearly doubled the size of the facility and
extensively modernized the look and feel of the 78-year-old
campus.
Since 1992, six new teaching and research facilities
have been built, and the once-drab and purely functional
interior now shines with steel, glass and an abundance of
natural light. Students — who previously had no place
to go apart from the class or lab — also now have
comfortable spaces they can call their own.
The school will mark the completion of the major
capital project with a rededication ceremony and
celebration on April 23.
The completion of the two new teaching and research
facilities, known as TR5 and TR6, marks the final phase of
expansion of the one-block campus, which has now reached
its maximum buildout.
The School of Public Health campus — bounded by
Monument, Washington, McElderry and North Wolfe streets
— opened in 1926 and originally consisted of one main
building with a parking lot in the rear. Its first main
addition was the Hume Wing, opened in 1964, followed
shortly by the Stebbings Wing and the East Wing Auditorium.
In 1994, the school, aided by a $2.6 million state grant
and private gifts, hired the award-winning Baltimore
architectural firm Ziger/Snead to design the buildout of
the campus. The result was TRs 1 through 4, which were
completed in 2002.
Dean Alfred Sommer in the
gallery
PHOTO BY HPS/WILL KIRK
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The two latest TR facilities, which cost $55 million,
add approximately 200,000 square feet of floor space, 260
offices and eight floors of laboratory area. Many of the
new laboratories will be dedicated to the Malaria Research
Institute, which is working on vaccines and other methods
to eradicate malaria.
Alfred Sommer, who became the school's dean in 1992,
said that from day one of his tenure, he realized that the
densely populated campus had an inadequate amount of
research space and common area, and that much of the
existing space was unacceptably outdated.
"To say the least, there was a very pressing need for
modern space here," said Sommer, who cited the examples of
a boardroom that had a cracked Formica table and cork walls
with chunks ripped out, and lab spaces that the school's
original faculty would have recognized. "In fact, the size
of the campus remains inadequate even now, when every bit
of space is spoken for. That should tell you just how
strapped for room we were.
The gallery with a view of the
mezzanine
PHOTO BY HPS/WILL KIRK
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"And for our 1,600 students, there was no place for
them to relax and for their spirits to soar," Sommer said.
"In essence, there was nowhere for our students to be
traditional students."
Faced with no available green space and limited
expansion room, the renovation design called for creating a
campus inside the building, with new commons spaces,
lounges and hallways that had the feel of sidewalk cafes,
said Michael Linehan, director of facilities management for
the School of Public Health.
Project architects Ziger/Snead also designed SPSBE's
Downtown Center, the Maryland Institute College of Art's
bold, glass-sheathed Brown Center and the three-story
addition and new grand entrance to the Maryland Historical
Society, among other notable projects.
For the School of Public Health, Ziger/Snead
transformed the Monument Street entrance, which is now the
front door to the campus. The result is a sleek two-story
gallery that serves as the circulation spine for the entire
facility, Linehan said.
The cafeteria, on the mezzanine
level
PHOTO BY HPS/WILL KIRK
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"It's the Champs Elysees of the building," he said.
"We wanted a grand new space that was in proportion to the
expanded facility."
The gallery space features a dramatic skylight, a new
cafeteria, a frosted glass-encased conference room and a
10-foot-tall wall-mounted video monitor that cycles through
Public Health-related images. Scattered throughout the
space are stylish steel chairs on the first floor and
ergonomic benches and chairs upstairs on the mezzanine
level, making it feel like one large, extended lounge.
The use of steel, blonde wood panels and glass echoes
throughout the campus, seamlessly tying in old and new. The
school's 1992 master plan broke the renovation project into
five separate pieces, Linehan said, which would come
together like Legos.
"Part of our scheme was to add on to the building
while simultaneously renovating the older portions,"
Linehan said. "We worked out common furnishings, colors and
other interior notes so that the older building wouldn't
become second class but rather feature the same motif and
elements."
The new buildings feature a coffee shop, fitness
facility and a four-story, sky-lit reading court that will
be furnished with chairs, couches and tables. The fitness
facility, located on the TR6's ninth floor, contains
treadmills, weight machines, stationary bikes and other
exercise equipment, some of which have flat-screen
televisions mounted on them.
The Monument Street entrance, the
front door to the campus
PHOTO BY HPS/WILL KIRK
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Other campus additions include a state-of-the-art
350-seat auditorium, Feinstone Hall (a large multipurpose
room), several large meeting spaces and dozens of new
laboratories and classrooms. The building also features
wireless service so that students can access the Internet
from anywhere in the building.
Friday's rededication event, which will be held at
4:30 p.m. in the new auditorium, is open to School of
Public Health faculty, staff and students and selected
guests, a list that includes William H. Gates Sr.,
co-chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; U.S.
Senators Barbara Mikulski and Paul Sarbanes of Maryland;
Thomas Frieden, the health commissioner of New York City;
and Michael R. Bloomberg, mayor of New York. Mayor
Bloomberg will unveil a plaque dedicating the new facility
and the school, which is named in his honor. The largest
donor in the university's history, Bloomberg designated $35
million in endowment for the unrestricted use of the School
of Public Health.
The lounge next to the
cafeteria
PHOTO BY HPS/WILL KIRK
|
Sommer, who will be joined at the event by President
William R. Brody and Chip Mason, chair of the university's
board of trustees, said that the rededication event is not
just a celebration of the physical space but of the
school's continuing mission to protect health and save
lives — millions at a time. Specifically, the event
will serve to launch the Malaria Research Institute and
honor the work being done at the
Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and
Reproductive Health, which opened at the school in
1999.
Commenting on the renovations that have "transformed
the campus," Sommer said he delights in strolling through
the new Monument Street gallery and passing large numbers
of students as they relax, study or just settle in for a
snack.
"We wanted to create an internal energy to this place,
and we've done that. People's spirits here have gone
through the ceiling," he said. "To be honest, it was
depressing here in various parts before. What kept this
place alive was the dedication and vitality of its people,
who all want nothing less than to save the world. You can
only feel as good as the facilities around you, and now we
have a campus worthy of its human contents."
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