Saint John’s University | St. Maur & St. Placid Rowhouses

This project consists of a series of apartment style “townhouses” created for student housing that accommodates six students in each housing unit. The ground floor contains the living room, kitchen and dining area. The upper three levels have two bedrooms on each floor on the second through third levels. The scheme works with an interlocking but separate scissors stair that is extremely efficient circulation.

Each student has a private room with their own private bathroom. Each townhouse has a private on grade entry on either the north or south side of the building. There is a basement level that contains storage and mechanical rooms.

The vertical expression of the massing reflects the planning concept of individual townhouses with private exterior entries which contrasts to the design expression of the Breuer dormitories which reflect a double loaded corridor scheme with individual cellular rooms. The new rowhouses are aesthetically compatible to the Breuer dormitories through the use of the same materials on the exterior. Since the existing Marcel Breuer dormitories are a significant architectural landmark, the new townhouse design should not distract from the qualities of the original building

Industry: Higher Education