Proposal
from The Druker Company
Urban Design and Architecture
 |
Looking north on High Street |
High
Street
Looking north on High Street, the cinema marquee announces University
Gateway Center. The building itself is a celebration of the energy within
and is transparent to the activity within. The movement of the escalators,
and the mural beyond, animate the sidewalk and the street.
The proposed massing of buildings is intended to reinforce the symbolic heart of University Gateway Center at the intersection of High Street and 11th Avenue, creating a single gateway to The University District from I-71 to the east and from downtown Columbus to the south. And marking the heart is the illuminated beacon‹Gateway Tower.
On the west side of High Street, there is continuous retail use at the base with restaurant at the southern edge stretching around the corner onto 10th Avenue and with a diner and a restaurant on the northern edge stretching around onto 11th Avenue with exterior cafe seating. The building massing steps from two floors to four floors with office uses above the retail. On axis with 11th Avenue is the Gateway Tower which marks the entrance to the office building and announces the front door to The University District.
The tower will be internally illuminated with different colors forecasting the weather and celebrating important OSU sporting victories. This is an opportunity for an important new campus symbol and the birth of a tradition.
"Steady White, Clear Night
Flashing White, Clouds in Sight
Steady Red, Rain Ahead
Flashing Red, Snow Instead
Red and White, Buckeyes Show Their Might."
The massing of this building is articulated to present an assemblage of buildings, a streetwall of buildings reinforcing High Street¹s traditional architectural character and bay rhythm. The facade of the "Chinese Laundry" establishes a horizontal rhythm which is the standard for the streetwall. The "Chinese Laundry" facade is restored and becomes the entrance to University Student Services on the second floor. The surrounding architecture reflects the historic proportions and the materials of High Street but interprets them in both traditional and innovative expression. The intent is not to mimic, but to respect, reinterpret, reinforce and innovate.
The retail base is largely transparent providing visual access into the store interiors. The storefront is contained, framed by piers clad in cast stone and a strong storefront cornice in cast stone. Like many historic High Street buildings, the storefront itself is made up of its component parts: transparent display window, entrance, transom and sign band. The first floor is clad in cast stone to frame and anchor the retail, separating it from the brick clad office floors above. The sign band and transom provide a continuous datum, but are articulated in several different ways to reinforce the sense of an assemblage of buildings. This composition partakes of a tradition of retail architecture where the interior story is framed and the transom extends visibility into the interior. Awnings provide texture, color, signage and participate in the language of retail use.
Looking south from campus, the corners at High and 11th and High and Chittenden are celebrated and transparent allowing the retail and restaurants uses to visually spill onto the street. The Gateway Tower at 11th and High is visible in this view as is the cinema marquee serving as a visual anchor at 9th Avenue.
The massing of the east side of High Street steps up from two floors at Chittenden and 9th Avenue to a density of five floors at 11th Avenue, with a set-back at the fifth floor, responding to the height proposed on the west side of High street. Again, there is continuous retail use at the street with restaurant, retail and entertainment uses occupying both the first and second floors. Tall floor to floor heights, transparency to retail interiors, storefronts framed in brick and cast stone piers and a traditional bay rhythm define this retail corridor. Each building corner is celebrated, stretching the retail use onto the Avenue and creating a series of visual anchors.
There is a horizontal rhythm to these buildings which face High Street
defined by the structural bay of 25 feet. Vertically, there is a base,
middle and top. The retail, restaurant and entertainment uses are stacked
vertically on two floors, and this base is defined by cast stone cladding,
the two story storefront frame and the architectural language of retail
use‹awnings, projecting signs and sign bands. The upper floors are residential,
and, therefore, more opaque with double hung window sash, cast stone heads
and sills and brick cladding. The top‹the fifth floor‹is set back, creating
a kind of attic story with exterior balconies, reducing the apparent mass
from the sidewalk. The window proportions are vertical, typical of traditional
High Street architecture. The material palette reinforces the connection
to historic High Street but can be extended to include oversized brick,
painted steel and colored block.
At the intersection of 11th Avenue and High Street, the building mass is sculpted to create an important public space‹the center of University Gateway Center. These crescent facades are more modern‹exposing the structural steel of the skeletal frame and infilling with transparent glass which exposes all of the two story retail within. Above these crescent facades are outdoor balconies for apartments. At the second floor of the block between 11th and Chittenden is proposed a fitness center which spills out in three bays to balconies, exposing, from the sidewalk, the activity above. Again, this streetwall is articulated as an assemblage of buildings in the traditional scale of High Street.
At the block between 10th and 11th, the massing steps down; it incorporates
the facade of the "Firdous Restaurant" building; and it expresses the
volume of the cinemas beyond.
Table of Contents
