Bohlin Cywinski Jackson • University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington

Bohlin Cywinski Jackson's design for the new residence hall at University of Puget Sound, in Tacoma, Washington. Image: Courtesy University of Puget Sound

Puget Sound breaks ground on a new academic residential community.

A contemporary new residence and event hall, with modern interior spaces and a traditional Tudor Gothic exterior, will open on the campus of University of Puget Sound in autumn 2013. Preliminary work for the 55,000-square-foot building began in May on the corner of North 13th and Lawrence streets, near the center of campus overlooking Commencement Walk.

The 135-single-bedroom residence features innovative spaces and amenities that encourage students to connect academically and socially with their peers, while providing them with privacy and independent living. The hall also gives the Puget Sound community new spaces for teaching, meetings, and activities.

Bohlin Cywinski Jackson of Seattle designed the new building. (The firm also designed Weyerhaeuser Hall, Puget Sound's new center for health sciences, which opened in August 2011.) The brick and masonry design blends with the Tudor Gothic style of current cmapus buildings, and provides communal areas lit by floor-length windows with views of Mount Rainier and the campus.

The colonnaded entrance of the University of Puget Sound dormitory. Image: Courtesy University of Puget Sound

The Seattle office of Skanska is the project's general contractor.

The five-story residence hall includes 11 student "houses."  Each house contains nine to 14 individual bedrooms surrounding a great room kitchen and living area, as well as study and gathering areas, bathrooms, and laundry facilities. The hall will house four residential academic communities, including students involved in:

Humanities
Puget Sound Outdoors and Environmental Policy and Decision Making
International and Global Education
Spirituality and Social Justice

Targeting LEED certification, the hall will also have a 150-seat meeting room, student art gallery, seminar room, four study rooms, a pillared walkway, and an outdoor courtyard designed to support learning themes.



Project Credits: 

• Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, architect
• Skanska, general contractor
• AHBL, civil and structural engineer
• WSP Flack & Kurtz, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection
• Berger Partnership, landscape architect