Tours Available on NJIT Campus of Residence Hall Designed by Acclaimed Architect Michael Graves
Media tours are available of Laurel Hall, designed by prominent Princeton architect Michael raves. The building is the newest residence hall at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). The five-story, T-shaped building resembles a row of brick townhouses accented by attention-grabbing tall chrome-yellow columns.
The tours of Laurel Hall North and South, 141 Summit Street, Newark, can be arranged starting August 26. Students will be moving in throughout Labor Day weekend. Call Sheryl Weinstein, 973-596-3436, for more information. Architecture students will be available as tour guides. The School of Architecture (SOA) at NJIT is one of the nation’s largest architecture schools.
“The hall’s bright, almost whimsical, exterior colors entice people to stop and enter. Once inside, however, calming peach dominates the walls,” says Adam Wright, of Egg Harbor, a fifth-year architecture student. Wright, a resident advisor, will begin living this semester, his second year in this hall.
Other notable interior features, says Wright, are large, glass-walled and light-filled lounges which encourage and facilitate studying. Elevators on upper floors intentionally empty onto rotundas, a Graves’ signature. “Students love to use the rotundas as convivial, circular meeting rooms,” he adds.
About 600 students live in Laurel Hall, raising the number of on-campus residents at NJIT to 1500. This number has mushroomed since the early 1980s when NJIT built Newark’s first college residence hall. Today the NJIT campus features six halls that serve 17 percent of the university population. Plans to build a seventh hall exist, says Bill Anderson, Ph.D., dean of admission.