Winter at Penn State’s New West Campus

As the Engineering Collaborative Research and Education Building (ECoRE) begins its first fully operational semester alongside its already-inhabited sister building, the Engineering Design and Innovation Building (EDIB), Penn State has experienced several weeks of beautiful snow flurries and sub-freezing temperatures. This has left the West Quadrangle covered in a blanket of snow, which has fallen at times with the density and softness of a snow globe. Occasionally, even on days where the morning temperatures have been below zero, the sun has managed to slice through and illuminate both the snowy terrain and the building and landscape materials in the West Quadrangle. I’ve been lucky enough to capture a few of these varied winter moments on site.

The overcast sky of a squall and the snow-covered ground plane reflect in the glass of ECoRE’s southeast-facing façade, foregrounding the stark form and warm brick and curtainwall fin material.  The whiteout condition likewise creates a beautiful field for the building’s floating northeast-facing façade.

A cold cloudy morning is briefly interrupted by bright sunlight while most of ECoRE’s southeast-facing façade is still in shadow. While in shadow the reflective glass illuminates and elucidates a harmony between the landscape plantings and the building materials.

Another morning, the sky fully overcast, diffuse winter light hits EDIB’s southeast façade, which points to ECoRE in the distance, further down the path.

The snow and the winter light have revealed and punctuated some lovely qualities of both buildings, and of the new fabric they have helped to create on West Campus. We will be back often to explore more light conditions and more seasons, to discover more about the buildings and their relationship to the landscape and to the quad.