Branford and Saybrook Colleges

Yale University

Location: New Haven, CT

Total GSF: 281,000 GSF

Completed: 2001

Awards: 2002 AIA Connecticut Design Award for Preservation

The award-winning renovation brings new spaces and activities to two Colleges designed in 1917 by James Gamble Rogers. The program includes student suites, master’s houses, seminar rooms, and new kitchens, serveries, and dining rooms. Additional program fills antiquated spaces, yielding an engaging synthesis of old and new. Squash courts become theatres; an attic transforms into a college library; and unused basement space now houses fitness rooms, study and lounge areas, computer labs and a theater

Renovating existing structures is inherently more sustainable than constructing new ones, and we repurposing underused existing space is a successful way to limit and even eliminate the need for new construction. At Branford and Saybrook Colleges unused spaces fill with new program, allowing existing structures to expand functionally but not physically