Architecture | Civil | Electrical | HVAC | Structural

Gregory Hall is one of the oldest structures on the SUNY Fredonia campus and was built in 1949. Life safety egress was considered during a major building renovation in the early 1980's. At that time, a 2-1/2 story fire-escape stair tower was added to the narrow northern façade of this dormitory. This enclosure is constructed of masonry and faced with brick and is completely independent of the original structure. The stair addition was constructed on insufficient foundations with poor soil bearing capacity. As a result, it is settling differentially and pulling away from the original building. An attempt to stabilize the addition in 1996 has proved to be unsuccessful. DASNY and SUNY Fredonia approached Watts to replace the stair tower. SUNY Fredonia has identified this reconstruction as an opportunity to design a more prominent entry to the building, and provide visual identification of the entrance into the residential sector along the well used pedestrian pathways. Watts presented four options to DASNY and University staff. The available site area is very tight, constrained by existing sidewalks and underground utilities. With this in mind, our architectural designers proposed additions with few materials and simple lines. In each of the four schemes, adherence to the materials palate was selected by prominent architect I. M. Pei, who designed an adjacent building: concrete, brick and glass. In order to introduce light to the building interior, each proposed scheme includes wide expanses of glass. Thought was given to provide covered, exterior space at the addition entry to help prevent the build up of snow at the doorways during the winter months when the dormitory is fully occupied. The addition will also provide handicap access to the building interior.