Susan T Rodriguez | Architecture • Design

GATEWAY CENTER, SUNY / WESTCHESTER COMMUNITY COLLEGE | Valhalla, NY | 70,000 GSF
2010 | Susan T. Rodriguez (Design Partner, Ennead Architects)

The Gateway Center at Westchester Community College is emblematic of the College’s commitment to providing a more accessible education for local residents and an American college experience for the many recent immigrants to the area. Sited to frame the natural beauty of the campus landscape, the Gateway Center is a threshold to the College and an initial expression of campus identity. The building’s Gateway Pavilion is the compositional focal point and the main public entry for visitors to the building and the campus overall.  Integrated into the sloping topography of the site, entries open out to the landscape and the campus on two levels.  The Center’s  program includes shared gathering and assembly spaces, lecture hall, general-use classrooms, technology laboratories, fashion studio and a resource center to support the international students’ transition to American culture. The building and site are unified to form a sustainable daylit environment.  Locally quarried stone references the historic buildings on campus, with glass and zinc a more transparent and lightweight counterpoint to the stone.  In the northern wing, offices and classrooms are cantilevered over a glass-enclosed base. The monumental volume of the central atrium  is a column-free space formed by a modular system of structural steel frames (“lobster pots”) clad with an aluminum and glass curtainwall. The brise-soleil structure on the south-facing façade allows for uninterrupted views of the campus while optimizing natural daylight and limiting glare within the building.

LEED Gold

Awards | The Chicago Atheneum: The American Architecture Award 2012; SARA / National Design Award, 2011; AIA Westchester / Hudson Valley, High Honor Award, 2011; AIA NYC, Merit Award, 2011; AISC, National Design Award 2011; SARA NY, Award of Excellence, 2011

Photo Credit | Jeff Goldberg | Esto, Aislinn Weidele, Susan Rodriguez