The new home of the John and Frances Angelos Law Center unites classrooms, faculty offices, administrative space, and the law library under a single roof for the first time in the history of the school. The building, to be located at the prominent intersection of Mount Royal Avenue and Charles Street, functionally & symbolically defines the Law School as an academic & social nexus, offering state-of-the-art teaching and learning facilities while fostering an interactive, communicative environment for collaboration between students, faculty, and administrators.
Architect: Behnisch Architekten
Country: Germany
Project Location: United States
With the proximity of the site to Baltimore’s principal train station, Penn Station; at the terminus of one of Baltimore’s great urban thoroughfares; and immediately adjacent to the Jones Falls Expressway, this building also creates an important and highly visible threshold to the campus and the City, and demonstrates the commitment of the University of Baltimore to the ongoingrenewal and development of the city.
The John and Frances Angelos Law Center is the first large-scale opportunity for the University to demonstrate its intent to pursue strategies that eliminate global warming emissions and achieve climate neutrality. The School of Law maximizes the use of natural daylight on the building interior; intelligently apportions spaces such that tempering of interiors is optimized based on function and occupancy; conserves and reuses as many water resources as feasible; and utilizes a flexible and highly efficient façade system to meet all of these goals. It also engages the Law School community by providing interior spaces that connect people to the cycles of nature (light, air, water) as well as to other people in the building.
The building form consists of three interlocking L-shaped volumes which articulate the functions of the building program – classroom facilities, offices, and the law library. The administrative volume also includes the separately accessible legal clinics where students, faculty, and local attorneys provide legal services to the community. An atrium, a “green stalk” rising up through the heart of the building and connecting the three volumes, provides space for a lobby, coffee bars and informal work and meeting spaces. The Appellate Moot Court extends down from the main lobby to a lower garden level; court hearings, lectures and events are held within its assembly space.
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