Design Profile: Amy Gutmann Hall

Lake|Flato and KSS architects have partnered to design a new data science building for Penn Engineering. Amy Gutmann Hall, named in honor of the Penn’s longest-serving president, will be the future home of data science academic and research programs and will centralize resources that will advance the work of scholars across a wide variety of fields, making the tools and concepts of data analysis more accessible to the university community.  

Aspirations established during the integrated design workshop focus on creating an environment that connects occupants, who work in a digital world, back to the natural environment. The building will maximize daylight and views, integrate ecological environments into interior spaces, and incorporate sensory stimuli that encourage collaborative social behavior and comfort. To that end, Amy Gutmann Hall will be the first mass timber project for Penn, and the first six-story mass timber building in the city of Philadelphia. The structural system will both reduce the building’s carbon footprint by 52% relative to concrete and 41% relative to steel and create a warm, tactile, and welcoming environment. 

The six-story facility will house three floors of teaching labs, active learning classrooms, and collaboration spaces, and three-and-a-half floors of research centers organized around appropriately scaled neighborhoods that promote flexibility and connectivity. The building will support Penn Engineering’s innovation in data science and engineering (ideas) signature initiative for data science research and community engagement. The ground floor will serve as the home for Penn’s data scientists with a gracious student commons, quiet reading room, small cafe, collaboration spaces, and a large lecture hall. Welcoming researchers from across campus, industry professionals in the private sector, and our Philadelphia community, the building’s dedicated data science hub, located on the third floor, will create a welcoming environment to provide data science support and space for community education and engagement programs. 

Project: Amy Gutmann Hall   

Location: Philadelphia, PA    

Client: University of Pennsylvania 

Project Size: 116,000 gross sf  

Project Team: 

Lake|Flato (Architect) 

KSS Architects (Associate Architect) 

Ground Control (Landscape Architect) 

Pennoni (Civil Engineer) 

Burohappold Engineering (Structural Engineer)  

Burohappold Engineering (Mep, Fp, Lighting) 

Research Facilities Design (Lab Consultant) 

Gilbane Building Company (Construction Manager) 

Renderings: courtesy of Lake|Flato