EDUCATION
EDUCATION
EDUCATION

Cuyahoga Community College 
Metro Campus Center 

Cuyahoga Community College 
Metro Campus Center 

Cuyahoga Community College 
Metro Campus Center 

Informed by widespread input, the reimagined Campus Center is now a catalyst for campus and community. It is a beacon, with a glow seen from blocks away. It welcomes all.
—Always By Design

Informed by widespread input, the reimagined Campus Center is now a catalyst for campus and community. It is a beacon, with a glow seen from blocks away. It welcomes all.
—Always By Design

Informed by widespread input, the reimagined Campus Center is now a catalyst for campus and community. It is a beacon, with a glow seen from blocks away. It welcomes all.
—Always By Design

02_Courtyard View

Once an impermeable fortress, Campus Center was the most disengaged building on the urban campus. Set in a sunken court, the building is bounded by the library, street wall, and concourses which connect all campus buildings but this one.  Inside, visitors were met with maze-like corridors, sparse daylight, disparate rooms, and a dreary cafeteria. The building was underutilized and uninspired.

03_Before and After

The design solution aspired to shed a harsh brutalist identity and become the central heart of the campus and community – to bring truth to the name “Campus Center”.

04_North-Face

The design strategy: to connect and activate. The complex rehabilitation reduced the building to its concrete superstructure and infilled the surrounding cavernous moat, physically connecting it to the campus concourses. These three circulation paths converge at the social heart of campus: the plush, colorful Food Court and bright, double-height Great Room. A grand stair adds an element of theater, a platform to see and be seen.  Scaled volumes are carved out of the massive stair to sculpt special gathering spaces: The Beach, Family Room, and Tech Lounge.

5_Light Tornado
6_Grand Stair
7_Beach

Shedding its heavy masonry skin, the building form is softened, transparent, organic. The skin is a playful interpretation of the campus’ Brutalist fenestration treatments and rigorous five-foot grid. Matte and metallic panels mixed with clear and mirrored glazing renders a shifting façade, activated by time of day and navigating around it. Like a chameleon, the skin assumes and reflects its surroundings, for instance buildings, clouds, dusk, and flora. It is nearly impossible to witness the building exterior the same way twice.

8_Island
9_Family Room
10_HyperLoop
11_Racing Pods
12_Lighthouse

CERTIFICATIONS & AWARDS

CERTIFICATIONS & AWARDS

LEED Gold Certification

Downtown Cleveland Alliance
Ruth Ratner Miller Development Award

AIA Cleveland
Merit Award | Architecture Category

AIA Cleveland
People's Choice | Architecture Category

LEED Gold Certification

Downtown Cleveland Alliance
Ruth Ratner Miller Development Award

AIA Cleveland
Merit Award | Architecture Category

AIA Cleveland
People's Choice | Architecture Category

AIA Cleveland
Honorable Mention | Maker Category | Light Tornado

AIA Cleveland
People's Choice | Maker Category | Light Tornado

AIA Cleveland
Honorable Mention | Maker Category | Light Tornado

AIA Cleveland
People's Choice | Maker Category | Light Tornado

CLIENT
CLIENT

Cuyahoga Community College

Cuyahoga Community College

LOCATION

Cleveland, OH

SIZE

106,000 SF (69,000 SF Original Construction)

106,000 SF 
(69,000 SF Original Construction)

SERVICES
FIRM ROLE

Master Planning
Architecture

Interior Design
Environmental Graphics

Related Work