designwire daily | Wid Chapman’s Student Community Center Opens in New York

Wid Chapman’s Student Community Center Opens in New York

by Nicholas Tamarin | Monday, December 20, 2010

As the former chair of the interior design department at Parsons the New School for Design and currently a faculty member in its School of Constructed Environments, Wid Chapman is familiar with college students. Having already designed a 19-story, 1100-bed New York dorm for the non-profit educational Educational Housing Services, the architect knew how to deal with his client too when he was approached to create a new student community center in Brooklyn.

So the Wid Chapman Architects principal was in his comfort zone when he set out designing the colorful, cutting edge 8,200-square-foot Brooklyn Heights space in the St. George Residence, a former hotel turned dorm complex for 1,350 students from Pace University, Brooklyn College and other nearby schools.

Chapman, a RISD graduate himself, created a complex featuring a clubby lobby, a popular kitchen with a dining counter, multiple ovens, sinks, and stovetops, movie screening room, and study lounges, distinguished from one another with high graphic and color contrasts.

Green–the movement, not the color–gets its due throughout, with sustainable bamboo wood flooring in the kitchen/dining area and eco-friendly recyclable nylon carpet tiles continuing through the various rooms. Classic materials, however, were saved for the historic lobby, where a grand fireplace, library, chandeliers, and tufted leather sofas collegiately converge.

Photos by Nico Arellano/BridgerConway.