Philadelphia YIMBY’s recent site visit has observed significant progress on curtain wall assembly at Amy Gutmann Hall under construction at 3317-23 Chestnut Street in University City, West Philadelphia. Designed by Lake Flato Architects, with KSS Architects as the architect of record and Ground Control Collaborative as landscape designer, the building will rise six stories and span 115,954 square feet, and will feature classrooms, collaborative spaces for student projects, and a data science hub. The total construction cost is indicated at $68.3 million.
3317-33 Chestnut Street. Photo by Jamie Meller. August 2023
3317-33 Chestnut Street. Photo by Jamie Meller. August 2023
3317-33 Chestnut Street. Photo by Jamie Meller. August 2023
3317-33 Chestnut Street. Photo by Jamie Meller. August 2023
3317-33 Chestnut Street. Photo by Jamie Meller. August 2023
3317-33 Chestnut Street. Photo by Jamie Meller. August 2023
The building will rise around 88 feet to the top of the parapet, roughly matching the height of the garage. The exterior is crafted with an astute, though rather conservative in style, facade, comprised of a glass curtain wall with staggered gray mullions and spandrels, perched atop massive V-shaped supports along Chestnut Street.
Amy Gutmann Hall replaces a surface parking lot bound by Chestnut Street to the south, South 34th Street to the west, and the multi-story Chestnut Garage at 3335 Chestnut Street to the north.
Amy Gutmann Hall at 3317-33 Chestnut Street. Credit: Ground Control Collaborative
Current aerial view of 3317-33 Chestnut Street. Credit: Google/Lake Flato Architects.
Rendering of 3317-33 Chestnut Street. Credit: Lake Flato Architects.
Amy Gutmann Hall at 3317-33 Chestnut Street. Site plan. Credit: Ground Control Collaborative
Amy Gutmann Hall at 3317-33 Chestnut Street. Interior. Credit: Lake Flato Architects and KSS Architects
Amy Gutmann Hall at 3317-33 Chestnut Street. Interior. Credit: Lake Flato Architects and KSS Architects
Amy Gutmann Hall at 3317-33 Chestnut Street. Interior. Credit: Lake Flato Architects and KSS Architects
Amy Gutmann Hall at 3317-33 Chestnut Street. Interior. Credit: Lake Flato Architects and KSS Architects
A statement on the KSS Architects website provides the following project description:
Lake|Flato and KSS Architects have partnered to design a new Data Science Building for the University of Pennsylvania. Amy Gutmann Hall, named in honor of the Penn’s longest-serving President, will be the future home of Data Science academic and research programs and will centralize resources that will advance the work of scholars across a wide variety of fields making the tools and concepts of data analysis more accessible to the university community.
Aspirations established during the integrated design workshop focus on creating an environment that connects occupants, who work in a digital world, back to the natural environment. The building maximizes daylight and views, integrates ecological environments into interior spaces, and incorporates sensory stimuli that encourage collaborative social behavior and comfort. To that end, Amy Gutmann Hall will be the first Mass Timber project for Penn, and the first six-story mass timber building in the City of Philadelphia. The system both reduces the building’s carbon footprint by 52% relative to concrete and 41% relative to steel and creates a warm, tactile and welcoming environment.
The six-story facility houses three floors of teaching labs, active learning classrooms, and collaboration spaces, and three floors of research centers organized around appropriately scaled neighborhoods that promote flexibility and connectivity. The ground floor serves as the home for Data Science with a gracious student commons, quiet reading room, small café, collaboration spaces, and large lecture hall. To welcome researchers from across campus and the private sector, a Data Science Hub on the 3rd floor creates a welcoming environment for cross disciplinary collaborations and student events.
Amy Gutmann Hall at 3317-33 Chestnut Street. Interior. Credit: Lake Flato Architects and KSS Architects
Amy Gutmann Hall at 3317-33 Chestnut Street. Interior. Credit: Lake Flato Architects and KSS Architects
Amy Gutmann Hall at 3317-33 Chestnut Street. Interior. Credit: Lake Flato Architects and KSS Architects
Amy Gutmann Hall at 3317-33 Chestnut Street. Interior. Credit: Lake Flato Architects and KSS Architects
The interiors seen in renderings depict roomy, bright, and airy spaces, made particularly attractive with their flexible layouts and cheery light-colored wooden paneling. As such, Amy Gutmann Hall will be an exciting condition to the UPenn campus, and we look forward to further progress on the project.
A university website describes the development as follows:
Amy Gutmann Hall will serve as a hub for cross-disciplinary collaborations that harness research and data across Penn’s 12 schools and numerous academic centers. Including active learning classrooms, collaborative spaces for student projects, and a data science hub for the entire Penn community, upon completion, Amy Gutmann Hall will centralize resources that will advance the work of scholars across a wide variety of fields while making the tools and concepts of data analysis more accessible to the entire Penn community. This building will replace the current parking area at 34th and Chestnut Streets. Amy Gutmann Hall is expected to be completed in summer 2024.
Amy Gutmann Hall will be a significant addition both to the UPenn campus and to University City as a whole, replacing centrally located yet vastly underused space in the neighborhood’s center, which previously served as a parking lot, with a state-of-the-art higher learning facility with ample floor space.
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Bad building done on the cheap, with total disregard for the public,This is the first large commerical building to be made of wood in Philadelphia instead of steel which does not burn.Mayor Kenny and the license and inspection units hid the international building code under a zoning law which city council passed, because it easy and cheaper to install. As well as the internatinal plumbing code which includes plastic pipe, that burns and gives off cyninide gas!!Which will be suck into the H.V.A.C. system and kill people when there sleeping This code at Amy Gutman Hall is built upon a housing code, 3 stories and under with a maxium of ten people. This is nothing but a row house, with no regard for the high rate amount of human souls This building should never open. The fire chief should shut it down now, before someone dies.Pastic brick with is also in this zoning law that comes in sheets, like plywood.which is glued on the outside of the buildings that burns at a much lower rate then masonary brick and catches fires very quickly.We need our Philadelphia building code back, with material that won’t kill the public. STRUCKIAL STEEL, CAST IRON PIPE, ELECTRICAL CONDUIT AND METAL STUDS FOR OUR SAFETY.Mayor Kenny is a bum who took the money from constuction developers and construction banks like Jerry sweeny and liberty bank.If I was Amy Gutman I would not go anywhere near this building let alone but my name on it!!!!!