Fitzelle Hall

Through a comprehensive space planning and programming effort, architecture+ worked with nine academic departments and sub-departments in cooperation with the Office of the Registrar to determine the appropriate size of the building additions and to locate each academic department. This cooperative planning effort with over sixteen user groups enabled each academic department housed in the building to share common resources and effectively utilize the entire building together.

The new Fitzelle Hall seeks to integrate professors and students for each of the departments and the greater campus community by providing visual connectivity, light-filled circulation, and abundant spaces for collaboration. The reconfigured building shapes and reinforces the re-designed main quad of the Campus and provides a handicapped accessible pedestrian route from the student union to the main campus through a pedestrian bridge, a sky-lit atrium, and a glass covered walkway that connects to an adjacent lecture hall.

An atrium located on the southwest corner of the building serves as the main gathering and collaboration space for the building and provides visual access for the Campus to the activities within. The building design attempts to respectively integrate the historic architecture of the original Fitzelle Hall while providing a fresh, engaging public face for the building and the Campus.

Fitzelle Hall is the first building on the SUNY Oneonta campus designed to meet LEED Silver certification standards. Energy efficient building envelope and systems, daylighting, and sunshades created a building that is 20% more efficient than required by New York State Energy Conservation Code.