Columbia College Chicago Student Center

Overview

Opportunity

Solution

Impact

Team

By turning a traditional building inside-out, Columbia College Chicago’s student center creates a vibrant hub for creativity, collaboration, wellness, and cross-disciplinary learning.

Location

Chicago, Illinois

Client

Columbia College Chicago

Expertise

Education Brand Design Strategy

Opportunity

With students dispersed across more than 20 buildings, Columbia College needed a place that could connect its creative community and encourage interaction across disciplines.

Columbia College Chicago’s urban campus spans buildings throughout the South Loop and serves a diverse community centered on creative arts, media, liberal arts, and business. Through multiple engagement sessions, students identified a need for spaces that supported informal gathering, making, learning, and connection across disciplines. The opportunity was to bring these experiences together while creating a physical expression of Columbia’s creative culture, one that could foster interaction and strengthen the sense of community across its urban campus.

Why This Matters

01
Connecting, Not Collecting
Unlike a museum built to display finished work, this building was designed to reveal the process of creating it, turning making itself into a connective, shared experience.
02
Cross-Disciplinary Exchange
Shared spaces bring students from different disciplines together to make, learn, collaborate, and encounter new ideas outside the classroom.
03
South Loop Impact
The building creates a stronger physical and social connection across Columbia’s urban campus while extending its creative energy into the South Loop.

The new center will be a cornerstone of the student experience at Columbia. Our students have always sought out ways to collaborate and study in informal settings outside the classroom. Now, students will have a place designed especially for them.” - Dr. Kwang-Wu Kim, Former President, Columbia College Chicago

Solution

By turning the traditional atrium inside out, the design makes student activity visible, connects the building’s floors, and strengthens its relationship to the campus and the larger city.

Rather than concentrating activity around a conventional internal atrium, Gensler moved circulation and gathering to the building’s perimeter, making student life visible throughout the building and from the street. A winding, transparent circulation path links floors and programs together, opening the building to its surrounding campus. Flexible spaces support making, learning, gathering, and celebration, including a makerspace, digital labs, music rooms, lounges, dining, fitness and wellness spaces, and an 800-person event venue. A patchwork of transparent and translucent glass reveals student activity and artwork to the city.

From brief to build: how student input shaped a connected campus hub designed around visibility to facilitate collaboration and creative exchange.

Columbia’s “Dream Out Loud” planning sessions gave students a direct voice in shaping the building’s program and priorities. Gensler translated that feedback into spaces for making, collaboration, wellness, and student life while reinforcing the college’s learning-by-doing philosophy. The team explored how circulation, visibility, and flexible spaces could bring students together across disciplines. During construction, Gensler worked closely with the owner, contractor, and municipal and transit authorities to navigate a complex urban site, addressing concrete deficiencies, site-access constraints, and life-safety requirements while maintaining the design vision.

Maintaining the Vision

Early massing studies worked to solve complex urban construction challenges while preserving the building's core design goals.

Impact

The Student Center unifies Columbia’s dispersed campus, while its bold architectural presence along the street creates a distinctive new face for the college.

Students now have a dedicated place to gather, create, learn, collaborate, and connect across disciplines, bringing Columbia’s creative community together in one shared campus hub.

What Changed Because of This

01
Student Experience
A dedicated campus hub brings together spaces for learning, collaboration, wellness, recreation, and everyday student life.
02
Creative Exchange
Visible spaces for making, gathering, and learning encourage students to encounter different disciplines and exchange ideas.
03
Campus Identity
The building gives Columbia’s creative identity a bold physical presence within its urban campus and connection to the South Loop.

Space in this building is intentionally left ambiguous, so it's the students, not the architects, who ultimately decide how each part of it is used.

Recognition

01

AIA Chicago Awards

The Columbia Chronicle reported on the Student Center’s AIA Chicago Distinguished Building Award and Citation of Merit in Interior Architecture.

02

Metropolis

Metropolis examined how Columbia College Chicago’s Student Center creates a new hub for student life while connecting the college’s dispersed urban campus to Chicago.

03

Interior Design

Interior Design spotlighted the Student Center’s flexible, multiuse spaces and restrained material palette, designed to put students, their creativity, and connections at the forefront.

Team

Project Leadership

Brian Vitale

Brian is a Principal and Co-Managing Director of Gensler’s Chicago office, whose award-winning work deftly brings together the poetic and pragmatic sides of architecture. For nearly 30 years, he has inspired and led interdisciplinary teams in creating thoughtful, progressive design solutions for clients, institutions, and communities.

Meghan Webster

Meghan is a Principal and Co-Managing Director of Gensler’s Chicago office, where she pairs strategic leadership with a deeply people-centered approach. She grows the business by investing in talent, building trusted client relationships, and empowering teams to deliver ambitious work together.

Scott Hurst

As a Design Director at Gensler Chicago, Scott has brought his passion and energy to some of Gensler’s most influential and award-winning projects. His focus on local, contextual, and community driven projects can be seen across a wide array of building types including detail-oriented gallery spaces, corporate headquarters, and innovative learning environments.

FAQ

01

How does the building make creativity visible?

The perimeter circulation, open gathering spaces, and transparent glass façade put student activity and artwork on display within the building and toward the street.

02

How does the design connect the building to the city?

The perimeter atrium and transparent façade bring movement, activity, and student work to the building’s edge, creating a more active relationship with the city’s South Loop.

03

What is the “inside-out” atrium?

Rather than hiding circulation and activity within a central atrium, the design brings them to the perimeter, creating visual connections across floors and outward to the urban campus.

04

What types of spaces are included in the building?

The building includes a makerspace, music rooms, fitness center, dining venues, career services, event spaces, study rooms, lounges and outdoor terraces.

05

How was student input incorporated into the design?

Student feedback gathered through the “Dream Out Loud” engagement sessions directly informed the building’s program and priorities.

06

How do the materials support the design?

Glass, concrete, and black-stained plywood create a restrained backdrop that lets student activity and artwork take center stage throughout the building.

Related Work

project

Wichita State University Woolsey Hall, Barton School of Business

Wichita State University’s (WSU) Woolsey Hall advances business education by creating a workplace-inspired setting where students learn alongside the industries they will shape.

project

Wichita State University Campus Master Plan

Gensler’s 10-year master plan with Wichita State University (WSU) connects the University’s academic and Innovation campuses, creating a more walkable environment for learning, research, and community.

project

Convergence Hall

A next generation innovation hub in Draper, Utah, unites research, entrepreneurship, and short-term living, creating a connected ecosystem where proximity drives discovery, exchange, and impact.

project

Ironworkers Local 63 Training Center

A new training center makes ironworking visible, combining hands-on education, architectural metalwork, and sustainable design to prepare the next generation of skilled tradespeople.

Related Expertise

Education Brand Design Strategy

By turning a traditional building inside-out, Columbia College Chicago’s student center creates a vibrant hub for creativity, collaboration, wellness, and cross-disciplinary learning.

With students dispersed across more than 20 buildings, Columbia College needed a place that could connect its creative community and encourage interaction across disciplines.

Why This Matters

By turning the traditional atrium inside out, the design makes student activity visible, connects the building’s floors, and strengthens its relationship to the campus and the larger city.

From brief to build: how student input shaped a connected campus hub designed around visibility to facilitate collaboration and creative exchange.

The Student Center unifies Columbia’s dispersed campus, while its bold architectural presence along the street creates a distinctive new face for the college.

What Changed Because of This