CREW CT 2025 Blue Ribbon Brochure

Connecticut Residence and Dining Hall

Storrs, CT

Connecticut Hall brings 652 new beds to the University of Connecticut’s campus, replacing outdated barrack-style residence halls and helping meet an ongoing need for upgraded student housing. The new building improves the competitiveness of UConn’s on-campus residential experience against off-campus developer housing with semi-suite units and plentiful amenities. The building houses students in the Honors program, student athletes, and the Nursing and Wellness Learning Communities in mostly two-bedroom, two-bath semi-suites as well as some one-bedroom and non-suites for RAs and other accommodations. Two L-shaped forms come together in a seven-story massing that creates two courtyard spaces and completes the South Quad. An efficient, unitized layout of bedrooms includes lounges and study rooms at the end and middle of each floor. A 500-seat dining hall wing connects to the base of the northern L shape, overlooking Mirror Lake. The glass-enclosed ground floor provides common study areas, gathering spaces, game room, bike storage, laundry, and on-site offices that offer student access to residential life staff. A large communal living room visually and physically connects to the outside with seating that spills out to the outdoor courtyard patio. A 500-seat dining hall offers a range of food stations and a variety of seating options to support opportunities for social interaction or more focused meals. The exterior materials contrast the existing brick buildings on South Quad with an inverted color scheme of light brick, metal, and porcelain panels. Teak sunshading adds warmth to the glazed façade of the dining hall. On the interior, polished concrete floors and stained wood walls and ceilings create a contemporary character with welcome and warmth. Newman, as architect of record with design-builder KBE Building Corporation, was awarded the project in September 2024 and carried the project to completion by July 2024, just 22 months later. In picking up the project at Enhanced Schematic Design from bridging architect Sasaki, Newman’s approach was to fill gaps with minimal changes to the bridging documents and carry the minimalist design intent through to highly developed details. This approach required fitting solutions into the existing drawings like a puzzle when information was missing or when conflicts were discovered between the architecture and systems. Efficient fixtures and systems, on-site stormwater management, native landscaping, heritage tree preservation, and connection to a new campus geothermal field earned the building a LEED Gold rating and met the Connecticut High Performance Building Standards. The building is PV ready to support UConn’s 2030 carbon neutrality goals.

Owner — University of Connecticut

Project Size — 246,000 square feet

Project Team — Newman Architects, KBE Building Corporation, Sasaki, van Zelm Heywood & Shadford, DiBlasi Associates, Langan, The Green Engineer, Ricca Design Studios, Jaffe Holden Acoustics, WSP

12 Blue Ribbon Awards 2025