The John and Frances Angelos Law Center

The site is located near Baltimore’s principal train station, at the terminus of one of Baltimore’s great urban thoroughfares and immediately adjacent to the Jones Falls Expressway. Its strategic location establishes a prominent and highly visible threshold to the campus and the city, demonstrating the University of Baltimore’s commitment to urban renewal and development.

The new Law Center maximizes natural daylight within the interior by strategically distributing spaces to optimize thermal comfort based on function and occupancy. It conserves and reuses as many water resources as feasible, and utilizes a flexible and highly efficient façade system to support these goals. It also engages the community of the Law School by providing interior spaces that connect people to the cycles of nature (light, air, water) and to other people in the building.

The building form consists of three interlocking L-shaped volumes that articulate the functions of the building program—classroom facilities, offices, and the law library. The void space between these three volumes forms a vertical interior public space, in which vertical circulation, informal meeting areas, and collaborative workspaces are integrated.

The exterior cladding reinforces the three-volume composition of the building through the use of three basic facade systems. For the office and classroom spaces, operable punched openings with a unifying single glass rainscreen on the outside provide a visual identity. The library facade features an operable curtain wall with a graduated frit pattern, creating a woven veil-like appearance. The atrium facade is a multi-story glass wall attached to a steel frame, incorporating operable elements that naturally ventilate the building’s public interior spaces.