John and Frances Angelos Law Center

ENG - ITA ENG- The new home of the John and Frances Angelos Law Center unites classrooms, faculty offices, administrative space, and the law library under a single roof for the first time in the history of the school. The building, to be located at the prominent intersection of Mount Royal Avenue and Charles Street, functionally & symbolically defines the Law School as an academic & social nexus, offering state-of-the-art teaching and learning facilities while fostering an interactive, communicative environment for collaboration between students, faculty, and administrators. With the proximity of the site to Baltimore’s principal train station, Penn Station; at the terminus of one of Baltimore’s great urban thoroughfares; and immediately adjacent to the Jones Falls Expressway, this building also creates an important and highly visible threshold to the campus and the City, and demonstrates the commitment of the University of Baltimore to the on-going renewal and development of the city. The building form consists of three interlocking L-shaped volumes which articulate the functions of the building program – classrooms and offices, the legal clinic, and the law library – and define a narrow atrium, a “green stalk” rising up through the heart of the building and connecting the three volumes. In addition to its function as the connective tissue between program spaces, the atrium also captures the lobby, two coffee bars (forum level and Level 6) and informal work and meeting spaces. An Appellate Moot Court for practice court hearings, lectures and events is located one floor down from the main lobby and a garden level “forum” space for informal public events gives onto an exterior sunken garden on the north side of the building. This garden, shielded from the noise of the expressway to the north by a concrete retaining wall and water feature, creates a new urban link between Oliver Street to the west and the new moot court green roof to the east. Setbacks in the building massing created by the volumetric composition create occupiable planted roof terraces at varying levels on all four sides of the building that take advantage of the building’s height relative to the surrounding neighborhood to provide views out over the city of Baltimore. ITA -Un volume “contemporaneo” e funzionale, destinato a sorgere in posizione frontale rispetto alla stazione cittadina di Penn e per questo capace di fungere da “nuovo ingresso” alla città, caratterizzandosi quale nuova icona urbana. Tre i volumi su cui si articola la struttura, ciascuno dei quali è destinato ad ospitare una delle funzioni principali, ovverosia: aule, biblioteca ed uffici. L’edificio per uffici ospita anche degli studi dove studenti, docenti e professionisti possano offrire alla comunità consulenze o servizi legali. Un grande atrio coperto collega i tre volumi, accogliendo caffetterie e aree relax. Come nella migliore tradizione anglosassone, all’interno della struttura sono previsti dei fori dove gli studenti possano esercitarsi pubblicamente prendendo parte a simulazioni processuali. Un grande spazio assembleare centrale, adiacente al foro principale della facoltà, sarà sede di seminari ed eventi.