Judy Genshaft Honors College at USF | Morphosis

September 28, 2023 (Tampa, Florida) – LA-based international design and architecture firm Morphosis marks the completion of the Judy Genshaft Honors College at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, a significant milestone in the ongoing expansion and growth of one of the fastest rising research universities in the U.S. 

The five-story, 85,000-square-foot USGBC LEED Silver academic building is the new learning and programming center for the Honors College, a cohort of more than 2,500 students across all disciplines at USF who have demonstrated excellence in their secondary education, and more than one third of whom are first-generation college students. 

The building is designed to foster and enhance interdisciplinary exchange, especially between the arts and sciences, through curriculum-based learning spaces, art studios, a hands-on food laboratory, music rooms, flexible ‘sandbox’ classrooms, communal event spaces and a café. 

The design was preceded by an in-depth listening and engagement phase in which the Morphosis team sought to understand and incorporate feedback from the college’s students, faculty, advisors and administrators. Recognizing that perceptions of in-person learning and campus life were altered by the pandemic, the design challenge was to create spaces that were at once welcoming and open,

warm and active, and fluid yet tailored—with the added priority of creating a building that would be environmentally conscious and responsible with respect to Tampa’s hot and humid summers. 

“What struck us during our engagement phase was the innate curiosity from students across their disciplines and the unique opportunities in which the new Honors College re-interprets lab and learning spaces that allows opposing disciplines to research together,” says Morphosis Design Partner Ung-Joo Scott Lee. “We focused on the notion of the ‘piano and the lab,’ creating a building that would bring diverse areas of study together to spark curiosity, discovery and a deep interaction between arts and sciences.” 

The resulting design features an open interior that houses interactive studios and classrooms, a range of lab spaces, huddle rooms and study pods. Connecting all users into a single communal experience, the atrium is lined with a wooden lattice integrating visible learning lofts providing social and study nooks for students. 

On the ground floor, a communal space adjacent to the atrium can be opened and configured to accommodate large-scale events, including convocation and graduation. The second floor features a shaded exterior terrace—accessible from inside and outside of the building—that serves as an outdoor study and meeting space. Looking over USF’s central pedestrian walkway, the terrace also connects to a shaded amphitheater designed to host outdoor lectures, events and performances. The upper floors include classrooms, a faculty suite for offices and meetings, studio spaces and the Leona Genshaft Food and Culture Studio, an innovative space where Honors students can explore global issues while learning about diverse cultures through food and nutrition. The design achieves a balance of transparency and privacy, with open spaces for collaboration and quiet spaces for study and reflection. 

The Honors College serves as an anchor to a rapidly growing central campus district at USF, adjacent to the Muma College of Business and the Student Health and Wellness Center. With pedestrian access on all four sides and direct access to the second-floor terrace, the new building reinforces the pedestrian Sessums Mall and surrounding outdoor areas. The exterior of the building is clad in an aluminum panel rainscreen with an iridescent coating that creates subtle shifts in color depending on the time of day or season; the highly reflective cladding also helps lower heat absorption, contributing to the building’s energy efficiency. 

“The Judy Genshaft Honors College is the perfect place for our students to pursue their passions and create lasting memories during their studies at the University of South Florida,” says USF President Rhea Law. “A world-class honors college deserves an equally remarkable home. Our students will treasure this facility and all it has to offer as they ascend to new heights in their academic journeys.” 

Among the nation’s premier public honors colleges, USF’s Judy Genshaft Honors College brings together students, faculty and advisors in a close academic community that provides specialized experiences, as well as advanced educational and scholarship opportunities. Since its founding in 1983, the Honors College has been housed in different locations across the USF campus as its curriculum has evolved. This new purpose-built facility not only provides the Honors College with a free-standing building tailored to its dynamic program and strategically woven into the campus but also allows for the continued growth of the Honors College. 

The $56 million project is primarily funded through philanthropic support, including a historic lead gift of $20 million from USF President Emerita and Professor Judy Genshaft and her husband Steven Greenbaum. When the gift was announced in 2019, it represented one of the largest gifts of its kind ever made by a sitting university president to their institution. 

“This architectural masterpiece stands as a tribute first and foremost to Judy Genshaft and Steve Greenbaum’s visionary commitment to academic excellence and to their faith in our honors students as the future thought leaders of our state, our nation and our world,” says Endowed Honors Dean Charles Adams. “Our students will be leaders in every walk of life, but the thing that binds them together in my mind is that they care about making the world a better place. Here they have, at last, an academic home worthy of their dreams.” 

About Morphosis 

Morphosis is a global architecture and design firm creating work that is compelling, intelligent, pragmatic and powerful. For more than 50 years, Morphosis has practiced at the intersection of architecture, urbanism and design, working across a broad range of project types and scales – from civic, academic, cultural, commercial, retail, residential and mixed-use to urban master plans, original publications, objects and art. Committed to the practice of architecture as a collaborative enterprise, Partners Arne Emerson, Ung-Joo Scott Lee, Brandon Welling and Eui-Sung Yi lead a team of more than 80 in Los Angeles, New York, Dubai, Seoul and Shanghai in collaboration with founder and Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne. At the root of all Morphosis projects is a focus on rigorous research and innovation, prioritizing performance-driven design that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. Through its research arm, The Now Institute, the firm collaborates with academic institutions to create design-based solutions for the pressing issues of the day, from mobility, urban revitalization and sustainability to public policy, planning and community outreach. For more information, visit www.morphosis.com. 

About the University of South Florida

The University of South Florida, a high-impact research university dedicated to student success and committed to community engagement, generates an annual economic impact of more than $6 billion. With campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee, USF serves approximately 50,000 students who represent nearly 150 different countries. U.S. News & World Report has ranked USF as one of the nation’s top 50 public universities for five consecutive years, and this year USF earned its highest ranking ever among all universities public or private. In 2023, USF became the first public university in Florida in nearly 40 years to be invited to join the Association of American Universities, a prestigious group of the leading universities in the United States and Canada. Through hundreds of millions of dollars in research activity each year and as one of the top universities in the world for securing new patents, USF is a leader in solving global problems and improving lives. USF is a member of the American Athletic Conference. Learn more at www.usf.edu. 

EXTERIOR CLADDING

Mega-panel Façade System: MG McGrath

Façade Coating: PPG Duranar Vari-Cool Coating

GFRC (Glassfibre Reinforced Concrete): Rieder Fibre C

Architectural Louvers: CS Construction Specialties

WINDOWS

Curtain wall: YKK AP

GLAZING

Glass Fabricator: Oldcastle Building Envelope

Glass: Guardian Sunguard SNX 62/27 on Ultra Clear

INTERIOR FINISHES

Accoustical Ceilings:Rulon International, Hunter Douglas, Armstrong, USG

Expanded Metal Ceilings: Lindner Group

Demountable partitions: Modernfold

Paints and stains: Milesi Wood Coating, Sherwin Williams Paint

Acoustic Wall Paneling: Rulon International

Floor and wall tile: Crossville Studio, Daltile

Luxury Vinyle Tile Flooring: Interface

Carpet: Interface

Window Shade: Draper

Custom Fabrication: Factory Blue

Architectural woodwork: ISEC

LIGHTING

Interior ambient lighting: Delta Light, Lumium

Downlights: Lumenpulse, Mark Architectural Lighting, Gotham

Exterior: Lumenpulse

CONVEYANCE

Elevators / escalators: KONE

MORPHOSIS TEAM

Design Director: Thom Mayne

Project Principal: Ung Joo Scott Lee

Project Manager: Edmund Ming Yip Kwong

Project Designer: Stuart Franks, Daniel Pruske

Project Team: Fiorella Barreto, Farah Harake, Yiyao Liu, Natalia Traverso Caruana

Project Assistants: Javier Benavides, Ria Bravo, Lauren Buntemeyer, Laura Cella, Melody Chu, Alanna Deery, Racheal Dippel, Geoffrey Ford, Fredy Gomez, Karen Lohrmann, Eric Meyer,Carolyn Ng, Jack Oliva-Rendler, Eugene Ong, Danny Ortega, Jae Ho Park, Francois Rucki, Kevin Sani, Poyao Shih, Lawson Spencer

Photography: Seamus Payne

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