Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan, among other dignitaries, were on hand at a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open Behnisch Architekten’s new John and Frances Angelos Law Center at the University of Baltimore in Maryland. The 190,000-square-foot building, designed by Boston- and Stuttgart-based Behnisch with Baltimore’s Ayers/Saint/Gross, is the result of a 2008 competition that called for a new law center which would be both contemporary and functional. To that end, the team created a complex that comprises three programs, each housed in a distinct, L-shaped volume: classrooms, a library, and offices for faculty and administrators. An atrium connects the three interlocking volumes with a central lobby, which extends into a lower garden level.
Sited across from Baltimore’s Penn Station, the new law center visibly marks the University of Baltimore as an unwavering presence within the city. As such, the new building “received significant support from the governor and from the Maryland General Assembly,” according to a statement from University of Baltimore President Robert L. Bogomolny.
The School of Law building seeks a LEED Platinum rating—in addition to its USGBC Maryland President’s Award for Leadership and Vision in Green Building—for interiors that maximize natural daylighting through an efficient façade system, while at the same time optimizing temperature based on occupancy.
For more details and images of the John and Frances Angelos Law Center at the University of Baltimore, visit ARCHITECT‘s Project Gallery.
