Expanded Max Lowenthal Hall opens its doors at RIT

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The Saunders project adds more than 35,000 square feet of space to the building on four floors. (Photo: Scott Hamilton / RIT)

If it weren’t for friends and alumni, Max Lowenthal Hall wouldn’t have been able to offer a dynamic new setting for teaching and learning. The renovated and expanded home of the Saunders College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology officially opens this week for the fall semester. 

Eighty-five percent of the project, a commitment of nearly $12 million, came from donors like Philip Saunders; Chance Wright; Susan Holliday; and the late Klaus Gueldenpfennig, his wife Brigitte Gueldenpfennig and daughter Dinah Gueldenpfennig Weisberg. (Saunders also received a grant as part of the state’s Higher Education Capital Matching Grant Program.)

The $25 million Saunders project, designed by architecture firm LaBella Associates, adds more than 35,000 square feet of space to the building on four floors.

“We had gotten to the point,” says Saunders dean Jacqueline Mozrall, “(where) there just wasn’t enough room to support our vision, and our vision is really about collaboration, enhancing the learning environment for our students through collaborative opportunities.”

Jerry DeRomanis, lead architect and higher education studio manager for LaBella’s Northeast region, says the plan called for doubling the size of the business school. 

“So, what we had to do was essentially look at their current program, expand the business school … with the goal of modernizing but respecting the existing architecture,” he says.

The project began in 2020—around the time the COVID-19 pandemic hit Monroe County. Mozrall and the team at LaBella had to find creative ways to keep it moving. DeRomanis credits Mozrall for maintaining progress.

“She was a great partner,” he recalls. “Every single time we had an estimate at every phase, unfortunately, the cost of the project kept going up and up. Most of our (other) projects either would get shelved or you’d have to decrease the project cost by (cutting a) program or niceties within the building.

“(Mozrall) was amazing in that she was able to engage the community, to increase fundraising, to bridge those gaps at every step of the way, and made sure that the project vision was maintained,” he adds. “The vision was exactly what we intended.”

Max Lowenthal Hall, built in 1977, was designed by Robert Macon, whose signature is visible not only on the RIT campus but also in other parts of the city.

“I’d say it was pretty emblematic of that period in architecture, the modernist period,” says Barbara Burke, project associate at LaBella, of Lowenthal Hall. “Really clean lines, simple shapes, little to no ornamentation. The brick facade has really stark geometric reveals that create like a pattern and a rhythm of light and shadow.”

The LaBella team worked to transform the starkness of the building—the space is largely concrete—to create a warmer, welcoming space. The expansion of Lowenthal Hall called for collaborative student spaces and flexibility, supporting experiential-based, interdisciplinary learning and research. 

Two cantilevered volumes protrude to the north and south, each with an occupiable rooftop terrace. (Photo: Carlos Ortiz/RIT)

“One of the things that we really emphasized was some of that wood detailing that was in the existing (building),” says Danielle Lewis, interior designer at LaBella. “We did use some of the kind of concrete forms as well, looking at a couple areas where we had some kind of views from different floors, using some of the cast concrete there, but a lot of the places where students and faculty are interacting, bringing in some of that woodwork. We wanted to emphasize and highlight areas. I think RIT likes to refer to them as creative collision zones.”

DeRomanis notes that his team was careful to pay homage to the traditional language and material of the building while considering changes. 

“We had to flip the script to cater to today’s 21st century learning, today’s student,” he says. “So, some of the design principles were kind of rooted in a traditional material palette, but kind of reinterpreted in a more contemporary way.”

A feature wall extends through three floors.
(Photo: LaBella Associates)

Now, two cantilevered volumes protrude to the north and south, each with an occupiable rooftop terrace. A feature wall extends through three floors, offering visibility from the lobby to the pre-event space. The building’s exterior, with an ode to the existing structure and retaining the Brick City identity, creates shadow reveals, while also emphasizing connection through the use of glass.

Natural light enhanced the learning environment, Burke says, but at the same time, the team had to consider the energy code and the amount of heat brought in through the glass. 

“The overall massing of the building, those deep recesses within the facade, actually block a lot of direct sunlight, as the sun (is) traveling round the building throughout the day,” she says. “We also considered the glass itself, especially to reduce the amount of, specifically, infrared light that enters through the building.

“We added a ceramic frit pattern within the glass, and additionally added some custom exterior mounted louvers that actually add a lot of character across like a central band of the building,” she adds. “So, all nice-looking design features that also simultaneously serve a very important purpose of preventing that solar heat gain.”

Adds Lewis: “A lot of those breakout spaces, those areas where we were using some of those warmer wood tones, also take advantage of great views of the campus, and really highlight the connection from the building to what’s going on in the rest of RIT’s campus.”

Breakout spaces in the building use warmer tones. (Photo courtesy of LaBella Associates)

If the structure had a theme, it would be collaboration. 

“We have about a dozen team rooms, and these are rooms where students can study individually,” Mozrall says. “They can do Zoom meetings, but they can also work with their project teams. They can also practice presentations. And so these rooms are multifunctional, and the students can go in and use them for whatever purpose they need at a given moment in time.”

Then there’s working together on a slightly larger scale. One is an auditorium and the other is an event center on the fourth floor, offering the school an opportunity to host events with distinguished speakers. It has already had a trial run in the spring with a panel on artificial intelligence for Leadership Rochester.

The Susan R. Holliday Center, located on the top floor, serves as the pre-eminent event venue for RIT and the greater Rochester region. (Photo courtesy of LaBella Associates)

“Whether it’s team rooms, research labs, classrooms or event spaces, it’s really all about collaboration amongst the students, faculty, staff, alumni and business community,” Mozrall says.

So far, students have found their way to the new features of Max Lowenthal Hall.

“We didn’t need to do anything,” Mozrall observes. “The students found every new nook and cranny in the building. Nothing gives me more joy than to walk around the building and just see students using the spaces.”


Smriti Jacob is Rochester Beacon managing editor. The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. Submissions to the Letters page should be sent to [email protected]

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