College of Business | Louisiana State University -- Baton Rouge, Louisiana

167,000 SF | 24 interactive classrooms | 18 collaborative team rooms | 300-seat auditorium | computer labs | mock trading room | business commons | offices

The E.J. Ourso College of Business was built to create a community of scholars in pursuit of business innovation for the Gulf South following Hurricane Katrina. The cultural ethos of LSU is entrenched in historicism as a reflection of their identity. In response to their deep connection to the past and aspiration to look forward, the project is a contemporary and regional response to the typology of pavilions organized around a central lawn, here expressed in glass and steel, and accommodating a variety of interactive classrooms, team rooms, offices, and a 300-seat auditorium. The courtyard site plan and building forms are contextual—recalling the sloped roof pavilions and arcaded courtyards of the adjacent historic Olmsted Brothers-designed campus. A hub for business innovation in Louisiana and the Gulf Region, the business school is purposely innovative in its expression. The pavilions are clad in ceramic coated translucent mirror glass and the rotunda is clad in a bronze solar screen resulting in forms that are ephemeral apparitions of the original campus architecture. This project was a joint venture with Coleman Partners Architects.