Northwestern University
Kellogg School of Management

Location
Evanston, Illinois

Owner
Northwestern University

Team
Acoustics and A/V - Threshold
Architect - KPMB Architects

Size
415,000 square feet

Schedule
Completed 2017

Kellogg School of Management created a new home to educate the next generation of business leaders. The building is organized into lower floors of larger public spaces and upper floors of offices, research facilities, seminar spaces, and collaborative impact areas, all surrounding a central atrium. AV systems throughout the building provide for facile communications among students and faculty, within the facility and at sister institutions elsewhere for distance learning. 

The large, five-story LEED Platinum building is designed to optimize flexible, adaptable spaces for learning and collaboration at every scale, from 2 to 20, 200 to 2000. All program spaces converge at the center: the Collaboration Plaza, a three-story atrium where students, faculty and visiting leaders gather. The Faculty Summit, a two-story piazza, forms the intellectual soul of the Global Hub, and offers a place for faculty to discuss, debate and find solutions to the pressing issues of the day.

Thanks to early development of the under floor plenum and arrangement of space, acoustics throughout the facility allow the simultaneous function of all of the primary spaces without interruption – an approach that is challenged by the use of natural ventilation and radiant systems for primary environmental controls.

“Carefully wrought, spatially complex design that promises to teach future executives valuable lessons about collaboration, boldness and flexibility.” - Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune Architecture Critic