The Wharton School is a cluster of buildings within the dense urban fabric and landscaped spaces of the University of Pennsylvania campus. The context of historic buildings, pedestrian circulation, and infrastructure make introducing new architecture into the campus a thoughtful study of form, material, and resonance. Building forms adjust scale and materiality to different adjacencies, they shape or define campus spatial conditions, and they address transparency, opacity, and solar conditions, resolving its place in the campus.

The ground floor improves aging campus precinct services, replacing a formerly underground electrical substation and surface delivery yard with new indoor service bays and a vehicle turntable. The cantilevered building form responds to the adjacent subway tunnel while maximizing floor plates hovering over an active student walk. The upper four floors link directly to the south side of Steinberg Hall -Dietrich Hall with critical and contiguous space for Wharton’s academic and research uses.

Two floors are programmed for active student use and two floors are planned for academic research in statistics and data analytics. A core of active-learning classrooms, seminar rooms, and group study rooms are adjacent to informal lounge and huddle spaces that overlook the campus or an internal atrium and double as event space in the evenings. The common areas are passages of the building - linked spatially with each other and, equally important, with the campus beyond.

A custom exterior rainscreen system featuring large format porcelain panels expresses the traditional slate found on buildings across campus. The curtainwall is a sophisticated assembly, designed for energy effectiveness and comfort in academic offices and public spaces. The architecture of the interior expresses elements of craft and materiality with surfaces and objects conceived for durability and character. One of these objects is a popular cantilevered spiral stair that connects the entrance lobby with the two academic floors above – and is shared in space with the campus quad beyond. A graphic glass wall installation brings consistency, color, and durability to the surfaces of the common spaces, uniting them horizontally through a subtle change of hue from red to yellow via a unique algorithm composition.