FLCC | Victor Campus Center
Victor, New York
DiFelice Development - Finger Lakes Community College
Winner of 2012 AIA Rochester Design Excellence Award
Finger Lakes Community College (FLCC), enjoying significant increases in enrollment, and charged with a strategic initiative to expand its education facilities to satellite locations proximate to high-tech businesses, sought to create a campus in Victor, New York. The 'FLCC Victor Campus Center', designed to focus upon Architecture, Engineering, Computer Science, as well as core Liberal Arts curricula, opened for its inaugural semester in January 2010.
The prime design challenges were to create a single building that had the atmosphere of a 'campus' of buildings, and to provide a facility that was easily adaptable for a future academic wing. The result was achieved through intensive design collaboration between the Consultant Design Team and a Design Committee consisting of a consortium of academic and building professionals.
The building's circulation is straight forward. The academic wing is a simple double-loaded corridor flanked by labs, classrooms and faculty support spaces. Transparent glazing in the corridor walls allows for borrowed natural light through the building and for visibility of the student projects. The commons, a two-story light-filled gathering space for students and staff, is the heart of the building. It serves as the campus reception, as well as a place for informal interaction. Per the master plan, it is strategically located at the building's north terminus, so that upon completion of Phase II, it will be the central hub of both academic wings.
The careful use of massing, materials and proportion provide the feeling of separate buildings that are unique yet cohesive to one another. The intent is to present a high-tech, yet conservative aesthetic that is both contemporary and respectful of the local buildings of similar typology. Great importance was placed upon vistas out to the wetlands and trails, visibility and transparency within the building, and the permeability of natural light.
