One year after it opened, Clemson University’s $30 million, 81,000-sf Core Campus Dining Facility is one of the South Carolina-based school’s most popular gathering places.
The 1,200-seat, two-story dining hall, designed by Sasaki, is a major component of Clemson’s $96 million Core Campus that includes three new residence halls with 688 beds, designed by VMDO Architects.
The campus’s buildings are interconnected by a North-South “avenue” and exterior promenade with gardens and terraces, according to Ivelisse Otero, Sasaki’s design project manager.
The dining hall services roughly 5,700 students per day. It features The Fresh Food Company, an open-display cooking concept devised by the college’s longtime foodservice contractor Aramark, with a variety of stations for deli, pizza and pasta, desserts, salads, and all-day breakfast.
Students are especially enamored of the cooked-to-order aspect of these venues, which offer such options as Southern-style cuisine and even chef’s table events.
Clemson University's year-old dining hall offers students a variety of culinary choices, including four free-standing restaurants. Image: Jonathan Hilyer
And not that eating is a religious experience, but the dining hall’s high ceilings and ample lighting might suggest a cathedral to some students. Notably, there’s an upper mezzanine where students can hang out, study, and snack in a more casual lounge environment.
A mezzanine level allows students to hang out and snack in a lounge-like environment. Image: Jonathan Hilyer.
Anthony Harvey, Clemson’s Director of Housing and Dining Facilities, tells BD+C that the university’s main objective with this project was to keep more sophomores on campus by replacing aging infrastructure with a newer, larger facility with better mechanicals and flexible spaces for reprogramming.
He acknowledges that the dining and residence halls, along with Clemson’s academic and athletic facilities, are recruitment and retention tools. (The Core Campus is located near Frank Howard Field at Clemson Memorial Stadium. BD+C recently recognized Clemson’s $55 million, 142,500-sf Allen N. Reeves Football Complex as one of this year’s Building Team award winners.)
Harvey adds that the university wanted to increase the amount of retail on the west side of campus. It moved a Starbucks from across the street into a ground-floor space in the dining hall. The building has three other branded restaurants—Raising Cane’s (chicken fingers), Twisted Taco, and Which Wich (sandwiches)—as well as a convenience store. The four restaurants have a combined capacity of 300 seats.
“Our design elaborates on the concept of the marketplace, where users can meander between retail, dining, and residential halls,” explains Otero.
Sasaki was the design and landscape architect on this project, whose Building Team included Stevens & Wilkinson (MEP, SE, AOR), and Whiting-Turner Construction (GC). The buildings are targeting LEED Silver certification.
The dining hall’s construction was plagued by a series of rain delays and budgetary constraints. But since the hall opened in September 2016, Harvey says some design features, like wall tiles and signage, which were edited out because of cost, have been restored.
Related Stories
Multifamily Housing | Sep 25, 2018
Fitness centers go for wellness
Equipment choice, room size, program offerings—a lot of thinking has to go into creating a fitness facility that pays off in resident satisfaction.
Multifamily Housing | Sep 24, 2018
Topsy-turvy: Creative use of air rights results in a model of urban luxury design
Using bold cantilevering and imaginative structural design, ODA and its project team created a 12-story building whose massing grows in width as it steps upward.
Multifamily Housing | Sep 21, 2018
A place of ‘voluntary and cheerful resort’
A project team soldiers on in the wake of a nightmarish turn of events.
Multifamily Housing | Sep 19, 2018
Multifamily market trends 2018: What the experts are saying
The growth of keyless entry solutions and demand for oversized units are among the trends and ideas shared at Marcus & Millichap’s 2018 Multifamily Forum in Chicago.
Multifamily Housing | Aug 29, 2018
Brighton Marine is the largest veterans’ development constructed in Boston since World War II
The Architectural Team designed the project.
Multifamily Housing | Aug 27, 2018
5 noteworthy multifamily projects: summer 2018 edition
The 5 buildings highlight MFDC's summer issue noteworthy projects section.
Multifamily Housing | Aug 20, 2018
$53 million Chamberlain apartments will comprise six buildings, three new and three renovated
The project’s groundbreaking was held on July 19.
Multifamily Housing | Aug 17, 2018
Sound advice on multifamily construction
Four leading experts tell how to ensure your next multifamily project achieves acoustic privacy.
Multifamily Housing | Aug 15, 2018
Memphis construction: Can this city become the next Austin?
One local design firm is trying to make it happen.
Multifamily Housing | Aug 8, 2018
Flyin' high: Humphreys & Partners Architects keeps soaring to new heights
HPA, which reported $78.2 million in multifamily design fees in 2017, ranks as the nation’s largest multifamily design firm.