Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Valparaiso University: Duesenberg Welcome Center

  • 07/01/16
Valparaiso University: Duesenberg Welcome Center

PHOTOS © DANA LEEK/MIRAGE STUDIO, LLC

The first college or university visit is critically important for students and families. This is guiding many institutions to create campus centers reflecting the identity that makes each unique. The goal for Indiana’s Valparaiso University was to create a new campus gateway and welcoming experience for prospective students, their families, alumni and guests.

The Valparaiso University Duesenberg Welcome Center designed by Shive-Hattery is located on a prominent meadow at the main campus entrance graced with panoramic views.

A gently sloping roof forms a connection with the surrounding campus Prairie Style architecture and frames a glimpse of the iconic Chapel of the Resurrection, which represents Valparaiso University’s foundation as a faith-based institution. The lobby is a transparent welcoming beacon of activity day and night, and is a first stop in this light-filled facility.

The 14,800-square-foot Welcome Center is home to the Office of Admission, as well as meeting and presentation spaces. Warm finishes provide settings for diverse activities from contemplation, to meetings and social gatherings, while providing a gallery backdrop for telling the story of the university.

Exhibits are displayed in the lobby and along the main street of the building, and include an interactive campus map, and a 60-foot-long timeline highlighting over 125 years of university history, including artifacts representing significant moments. When they return to campus, it has become the first stop for alumni who appreciate the Welcome Center as a place to reconnect with their alma mater.

A highlight of the facility is a 16-foottall by 31-foot-long lobby mosaic named “Lightfall,” inspired by the Valparaiso University motto “In luce tua, videmus lucem” (In your light, we see light).

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

Featured

  • University of Kansas Breaks Ground on Entrepreneurship Hub

    The University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan., recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new KU Entrepreneurship Hub, according to university news. The Hub is part of the university’s School of Business and will include spaces for experiential learning and programming.

  • Designing for Every Mind

    Learning environments have the power to shape not just what students know, but who they become. When a school is designed with genuine empathy—for the full range of ways students think, sense, and engage with the world—it becomes more than a building. It becomes a catalyst for growth, confidence, and belonging. That is the animating idea behind neurodiverse design, and it is one that is transforming how more architects and designers are thinking about school design.

  • Surging Demand for Student Housing Fuels Major Campus Investment Opportunities

    University leaders throughout the U.S. are accelerating plans to modernize and expand student housing as enrollment stabilizes and demand for on-campus living rebounds. Recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that total postsecondary enrollment is projected to grow through the end of the decade, with undergraduate enrollment alone expected to increase by more than 8 percent by 2030.

  • abstract illustration of school gym

    How the Gymnasium Can Serve as a Model for Learning Space Design

    Multipurpose gyms work because flexibility was built into the brief from the start, not retrofitted later. The same logic applies to academic spaces.