In the heart of Eastern Washington University’s campus located on EWU’s central gathering lawn is NAC Architecture’s renovated Patterson Hall, the university’s largest general classroom building. The original 105,000 square-foot, 3-story building constructed in the early 1960s has been renovated and wrapped with a 30,000 square-foot, 2-story addition. The renovated building provides renewed, inviting, comfortable general instruction space with state-of-the-art teaching technology in a multitude of classroom sizes and configurations. It also incorporates much needed study spaces designed for individual and collaborative study. The study spaces and their locations promote student-faculty interaction.
Introducing daylight into the formerly dark, bulky building mass was a priority of EWU. Student lounges, study spaces and stairs were relocated to the corners of the building and have access to generous daylight and views. An internal, day lit, 3-story atrium was introduced into one of the main circulation corridors. Patterson Hall, which is expecting LEED Gold certification, contains 48 academic instructional spaces, a forensics lab and 200 work spaces for faculty and staff including 140 private offices that all have exterior windows.
