The site is adjacent to both institutional buildings and typical Oberlin houses, which are three-story structures with front porches. The massing of the facility reconciles the divergent scales by reinterpreting the porch-house prototype into an institutional model. Smaller scaled, separate “house” functions are located on the ground level, and the shared public spaces are on the second floor.

The 48,000-square-foot facility has three separate entries each accessing a student lounge, which also accommodates a study space, kitchenette and dining space, plus an administrative suite, mail room, coat room and stair to the dining halls and servery. An entry plaza offers access to the three house entries, lounges, and administrative offices. On the second level, the facility serves 800 students in three main dining halls.

The facility is articulated by three identical, pyramidal skylit dining halls, or houses, on the second level. A continuous linear element unites the three volumes, providing outdoor dining terraces on the upper level and a street-front porch on the lower level. The inverted organization provides natural light from above in a typically gray climate zone, and allows three separate dining halls with common service and kitchen to be organized in one structure.

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