Over the course of every school year, University Architect Mark Rodgers takes on multiple projects, big and small. For this school year, the projects are plentiful and quite large, which is nothing new considering DU’s tendancy to update campus on a regular basis.

Some include new building construction, building renovation, road work and landscape renovation. One of Rodgers’ focuses is the effect construction will have on the DU community.

“We try to minimize those [construction projects] impacts in a variety of ways,” said Rodgers. “This includes working with the contractors we hire to conduct some of the most disruptive work during the summer, winter and spring breaks […] everyone involved in the projects understands that we need to have an active campus and that the construction projects can be very disruptive.”

Reengineering DU: Daniel Felix Ritchie School of Engineering

The Daniel Felix Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science and The Knoebel Center for the Study of Aging is currently being built to the east of the F.W. Olin building.
According to Rodgers, this project is expected to be completed during the summer of 2016.

“Currently, the general contractor is completing the foundations and over the spring the project will start to rise to its eventual five stories,” Rodgers said.

Rodgers feels the new building will have many features that are oriented at significantly improving the facilities for the Ritchie School. This includes research laboratories, shop spaces and instructional labs.
Michael Keables, the Interim Dean at the Daniel Felix Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science said that the new building will offer more space to DU programs.

“Currently, the Ritchie School community is housed in five different and outdated buildings,” said Keables. “The new building will bring faculty, students, and staff together in a single building, allowing for greater interaction among students and faculty in the Departments of Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mechanical and Materials Engineering.”

With the new Ritchie School, four departments can now effectively collaborate together in one building.

“The building is designed to foster collaboration among the three academic departments in the Ritchie School as well as with the scientists working in the Knoebel Center as several Ritchie School faculty are conducting research on devices that will improve the quality of life for the elderly,” said Keables.

The building will be 129,000 square feet with two wings. One wing will be for labs and the other will be for offices; a central area with commons and classrooms will join the wings. The first four floors of the building will house the Ritchie School while the top floor will house the Knoebel Center for the Study of Aging.

The Knoebel Center for the Study of Aging was established thanks to Betty Knoebel’s $17.5 million gift. “The population of older Americans is growing rapidly,” said former DU Chancellor Robert Coombe. “The work of the Knoebel Center will help to both extend the lives of the aged and improve the quality of their lives and those of their family members.”

The Ritchie School will contain seven classrooms with several smaller seminar rooms, break-out study areas throughout the building, common areas on the first three floors, nine instructional labs, fourteen research labs and a food service and dining area.

Six classrooms will accommodate a variety of teaching styles with space for up to 50 students. Also planned is an auditorium that seats up to 75 people. Instructional labs will have state-of-the-art equipment and facilities so students can use equipment they will encounter in the corporate world after graduation. There is also an event space on the fifth floor with a patio.

“Each floor is devoted to a particular theme, allowing faculty and students with similar research interests to be housed together, rather than by discipline.” said Keables. For example, faculty from all three departments who are working on bioengineering will be located on the same floor.

The dining area will feature the WOW Café. “The WOW concept is a wing, burger and salad concept,” said Resident District Manager Ira Simon. “In addition to the regular WOW menu, we will be providing an alternate Halal selection and a Mindful daily special designed around a full meal with healthy options and limited calories.”
Sodexo selected the WOW concept through studies conducted in 2012-2013.

“Sodexo believes the WOW Café will provide a needed food service on the south side of campus. We believe our target market expands from University Boulevard to High Street and will be very attractive to students living in Johnson-MacFarlane Hall,” said Simon. More information about the WOW Café can be found on their website.

With the new building, the Ritchie School will be the premier facility for engineering and computer science in the region noted Keables.

“Instructional and research facilities will be far superior to what we have now; the new building will be the premier facility for engineering and computer science instruction in the region,” Keables said. “We are really excited about the opportunities the new building will provide to students and faculty for years to come.”

Additional information about the project can be found on the Ritchie School website.

Anna & John J. Sie International Relations Complex

“The Anna & John J. Sie International Relations Complex that serves the Josef Korbel School of International Studies is a multi-phase project,” said Rodgers. “This includes renovations to the current Cherrington Hall, a new structure adjacent to the building that will rise five stores to its west, and the eventual demolition of Aspen Hall.”

According to Rodgers, “The first two phases are expected to be completed during the summer of 2016. However the demolition of Aspen Hall and subsequent landscape work may trail into the spring of 2017.”

Rodgers said the focus of the new building is both the construction of spaces that complete the necessary space for an International Studies School, as well as creating additional community spaces similar to Marcus Commons for Daniels or the Law Forum in the Ricketson Law Building.

“The Korbel School has outgrown its current home. The new building will provide adequate space for our faculty, research centers, students and staff to operate at their optimal capacity without spatial constraints,” said Corporate and Foundation Relations Associate at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies Andrew Chiacchierini. “Several new classrooms and event spaces will be equipped with state-of-the-art technology. New office spaces for faculty and staff will also build on teaching and research synergies.

“There will be a dramatic increase in common and meeting spaces for students to share. This promotes a collaboration among students and fosters a greater sense of community,” Chiacchierini continued. “Increased space for our growing faculty research programs will allow us to hire more students as research assistants—an incredibly valuable part of the Korbel School student experience. The student research assistants work alongside our expert faculty and gain additional skills, knowledge, and expertise.”

The new addition will be about 44,000 square feet, doubling the number of classrooms for the Korbel School of International Studies.

“Sponsored research funded by federal and private sources has increased by over 400% in the last 3.5 years. This building will accommodate that growth by providing research labs for faculty investigators and their research programs,” said Chiacchierini.

Additional information can be found on the Korbel School’s website.

Smaller scale projects on the DU campus

Boettcher Auditorium has also seen some renovations, the main renovation being the installation of new chairs. Mark Rodgers works with the Department of Facilities Management to ensure current facilities around campus remain updated.

“Boettcher Auditorium is a more common type of project in many ways,” said Rodgers. “With over 4,000,000 square feet spread across our 130 acres, our office, in conjunction with the Department of Facilities Management, has many projects of various scales as part of the stewardship of continuing to update the campus and its facilities.”

“In the case of Boettcher Auditorium, we replaced chairs that dated to the early 1960s. Over 50 years of continuous use coupled with the fact that the chairs are no longer manufactured resulted in project to replace them said Rodgers. According to Rodgers, “Other smaller scale and recent projects include the creation of a central catering facility at Centennial Halls, the renovation of the Buchtel Tower and its landscape and the construction of a few offices to serve the Center for Multicultural Excellence in the Driscoll Center.”

Rodgers also has some future projects that are currently being considered.

“In terms of future projects, one instance is that we are considering a project that would affect York Street between Iliff and Wesley Avenues,” said Rodgers. “If this project moves forward, there is likely a disruption on that roadway during this summer.”

Rodgers said, “A major focus of this type of project is changing the character from one of a typical city street cutting through a portion of our campus to that of internal drives that are subservient to pedestrian ways that encourage careful and safe travel in a well-lighted environment.”