Faculty and students were encouraged to attend an open forum pertaining to the development of the campus center project Tuesday.
David Goodale, architect, was present to elaborate on the buildings vision and development.
Loretta Rahmani, dean of student affairs, said the building has been constantly changing in format.
“This has been an accordion process at times, where it has gone to the architects and back to the users,” Rahmani said.
Rahmani briefly summarized the process in which the building is evolving and opened the floor to Goodale, one of the architects working on the campus center project, who openly discussed the concept of the building.
“This building has the potential of being an icon for the community,” Goodale said.
Goodale used a model and a PowerPoint presentation in order to illustrate the progress of the project.
Though, the model itself was outdated in accordance to the changes made after the plans were presented to the trustees in September.
The trustees main concern, Goodale said, was that the exterior was too plain and boxy. To remedy that, darker tones where added as well as the introduction of copper railings and curves.
Although, much of the building will be glass, the effects will be inviting and welcoming to students. Goodale believes that the building is not going to mimic a certain style. Instead, the architects are focused on creating a concept for the building.
“I think it’s a good thing,” said April Cardoza, a senior business major. “I think it adds variety to the campus.”
The current plans for the three-story campus center include a multipurpose room, office space, lounges, classrooms, a recreational area, café and a bookstore annex.
Final placements for these spaces have not been settled upon.
The café is expected to be two-stories high, and located near the Pavilion.
The recreational areas, which may include an arcade, TV lounge, billiards area and ping-pong area will be located on the first floor next to the café.
After the recreational area, student affairs and student life offices will be stationed there.
“I agree with the use of the glass because it enables us to take advantage of the view that we have,” said Charles Bentley, ULV spokesman. “I think of it as looking out into the world but for those people that are not necessarily on this campus all the time, they have the ability too look in on us.”
The second will be home to open spaces.
Aside from the classrooms, faculty lounge and meeting rooms, there will also be a Mosaic lounge and a quiet lounge.
The third floor will contain the multi-purpose room, which will have the potential of holding 300 people.
“It seems to make a lot of sense to that it should be up high, because of the view,” Goodale said.
The multi-purpose room will be able to have movable walls so that the space could be converted into three rooms if necessary.
There will also be an indoor/outdoor porch with the possibility of having windows that can be opened.
The ring presentation room in Wilson Library held 13 people during the first meeting at 11 a.m. and six people during the second meeting at 2 p.m. Of the 19 people in all, one was a student.
However, Rahmani did point out students are involved in this process.
There are three students and a CAPA representative present in the user group meetings.
Goodale, along with his partner, will now take the commentary and reactions to the rendering and incorporate changes in time for the Nov. 4 meeting with the full board of trustees.
Andres Rivera can be reached at arivera3@ulv.edu.
