Side Notes: Where Student Wellness Meets Sustainable Design

Student health today encompasses far more than physical wellbeing—supporting mental health is equally critical to academic success and overall student wellness. For colleges and universities, offering mental and behavioral health services on campus is an essential first step, but designing those spaces to feel accessible, inclusive, and welcoming is just as important.

Chris Fischer, Associate Principal and Design Leader at BWBR, was part of the team behind the Carleton College Class of 1974 Student Health and Counseling (SHAC) Center—a LEED Platinum-certified facility designed to holistically address students' medical, counseling, and wellness needs. In this episode, Chris joins us to discuss the design process.

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Transcript

Welcome To Side Notes

Matt Gerstner 0:00

Welcome to Side Notes, the bite-sized version of Side of Design. In 15 minutes or less, we'll explore one idea, one insight, or one conversation worth hearing. Let's get to it. Welcome to Side Notes, the bite-sized version of Side of Design. I'm your host, Matt Gersner. Joining me today is Chris Fischer, Associate Principal and Design Leader with BWBR from our St. Paul, Minnesota office. I'm looking forward to our conversation today as we talk about the Carleton College Student Health and Counseling Center, now known as the Class of 1974 Center. Chris, thanks for making time to be here.

Chris Fischer 0:34

You bet. Glad to be here.

Holistic Care For Student Wellbeing

Matt Gerstner 0:36

Awesome. All right. So we don't waste any time on the side notes podcast. We get right into it. And I'm going to start by asking you, what is the most interesting or exciting feature thing about this project?

Chris Fischer 0:49

Well, I think when you put this much time and effort into any project, it's hard to isolate it down to just one thing. But if you were if you were going to extract a really important element of this project, I would say it's helping the client reach their goal of providing a more holistic college experience by creating a welcoming facility that treats both the physical and mental health of the student.

Matt Gerstner 1:15

Okay.

Chris Fischer 1:16

Also creating a place that enhances uh equity and accessibility.

Matt Gerstner 1:20

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Fischer 1:22

Um the building was made possible by generous donation from Carlton's class of 1974.

Matt Gerstner 1:28

Thus the name change?

Chris Fischer 1:30

Yep. That's the name.

Matt Gerstner 1:31

Okay.

Chris Fischer 1:32

It was in its infantile stage of design when the class of 1974 met for their 50th anniversary reunion at the college, and they decided at that time that this was a very, very important goal for the school to achieve. Carlton understood that the rigors of student life at a at a top performing, top 10 performing college is really challenging. And in order to be able to better help those students meet their holistic needs, if you will, they they needed to have a facility that treated both mind, body, and spirit.

Matt Gerstner 2:19

That's fantastic. I mean that that's a great opportunity for the students and for the the school to offer this to the students. So what again, this will be uh what are one of the details that you love or maybe you know like reflects the care and creativity of the project? And I certainly don't expect one detail.

Chris Fischer 2:39

Right. Well, I think in order to better answer that question, I think we have to delve a little bit into the overall design ideology for the project.

Matt Gerstner 2:48

Okay.

Chris Fischer 2:49

So I'm gonna take you on a brief path there and get into the detail

River Metaphor And Welcoming Entry

Chris Fischer 2:54

itself.

Matt Gerstner 2:54

Yeah.

Chris Fischer 2:55

T he project's design ideology was based on creating a welcoming environment that destigmatizes mental health.

Matt Gerstner 3:02

Oh, fantastic. Yeah.

Chris Fischer 3:04

One of by well, basically by connecting with nature, we create an environment that is more humane, more inviting for the inhabitants. And so we look to the adjacent, well, we looked into rivers in general as this wonderful of flow and attachment to nature. And the Carleton College campus is formed by the Cannon River, which flows into in and around the campus and into Northfield.

Matt Gerstner 3:35

Okay.

Chris Fischer 3:36

And uh really that is our point of departure and connect and our connection to nature. And so as you approach the building, the building's entries, uh, you notice that the massing is split into into two, revealing this central void or canyon, if you will, which is which ends up being the public space for the building, and it draws you into the building in that situation.

Matt Gerstner 4:01

Okay, okay.

Chris Fischer 4:02

Ultimately, that idea of a river carving away at its surroundings was the big metaphor for this particular project. So as you approach the building, you'll notice and you approach that central public space or void, you'll notice that there's radius corners that soften things as you come up to the building and make it more inviting, especially folks who are potentially in a vulnerable position at this point. Right. And so, and then that continuity takes place again on the interior, where we create these rounded or boulder-like elements along the public space, and and again, just really creating soft edges, soft corners, and allowing those pieces to be inviting. And that even goes to the point of carving away from some of those elements and creating seating niches that allow you to feel more protected while you're sitting there and less exposed, if you will.

Matt Gerstner 5:05

That's fantastic. I love that.

Chris Fischer 5:07

So, how does this get to your other question about detailing? Yeah, well, yeah, along with that, texture was a big part of designing this building, both on the inside and the outside.

Brick Texture And Quiet Interiors

Matt Gerstner 5:19

Okay.

Chris Fischer 5:20

And uh that expression is really an expression of natural breakdown in general, right?

Matt Gerstner 5:26

Okay.

Chris Fischer 5:26

So getting back to that idea of nature and environment. This detailing occurs on the exterior and how we laid up the brick. The brick is a combination of a running bond or a horizontal bond, and then some soldier coursing. And the soldier coursing does two things, or actually three things. One, it allows us to smoothly navigate those radius corners.

Matt Gerstner 5:55

Okay.

Chris Fischer 5:55

Looks really good. So you have the brick reoriented in that situation to make that radius , or create that radius very cleanly.

Matt Gerstner 6:06

Yeah.

Chris Fischer 6:06

And then within those soldier course bricks, we do a push and pull and create this textural pattern that you see on the outside of the building, but it's not everywhere. So there's this back and forth between where the building has a running bond and it's really smooth layout of brick, yeah, and then the textured portion of the brick. And this creates almost a sedimentation effect on the outside of the building as well, which gives you more of a natural feature within that. So that's on the outside. And then as we move to the inside, there's also uh wood slats that occur in these wood elemental objects, as we were talking about before, those boulders along the public spaces.

Matt Gerstner 6:48

Yeah.

Chris Fischer 6:48

And obviously the wood slats are there to provide some texture and some relief, but they're also there for acoustical absorption as well.

Matt Gerstner 6:56

Ah, okay, okay. Fantastic. Just .... I love every time I talk with our designers, I love just the the way we bring in the surrounding nature, that kind of thing, and look for the inspiration there and how it translates into the building. And everybody does it with a different product. It's a whether it's brick or stone or wood or whatever. It's it's always really fun and fascinating to hear about those things.

Chris Fischer 7:21

Yeah, it's important. It's an important driver and what it's an important piece of our process that allows us to differentiate our architecture from other pieces and really allows us an opportunity to make it place-based.

Matt Gerstner 7:34

Yeah,

Budget Pressure On A Small Build

Matt Gerstner 7:35

yeah. So thinking about the whole process then, like what was a challenge maybe that you and the team had to try and overcome?

Chris Fischer 7:43

You know, I think with every project that I come across, it's almost certainly uh a challenge of budget, right? We're talking about, and we'll get into this a little bit later. And then, but um the idea of creating a high performing building that maintains all of its design goals and then still is answering to a very finite budget, is always probably the biggest challenge in every design piece. Trying to hold all those pieces together while still making the budget work for the client,

Matt Gerstner 8:18

Y eah.

Chris Fischer 8:18

to me is always gonna be the most challenging part. And it was no different than this one. This building being only a 20,000 square foot building, it was small, you don't have orders of magnitude to help save some of the costs and so forth. So um that was probably the biggest challenge.

Matt Gerstner 8:37

Okay, I can I can see how that would happen. It's uh I'm used to hearing projects that are 100,000 square feet, you know, 70,000 square feet even. And like you said, the the order's magnitude, you're talking just material in bulk is easier to acquire in a lot of cases.

Chris Fischer 8:53

R ight.

Matt Gerstner 8:53

So yeah, I can see how that would be a challenge for this. So if you're looking to the future then, what uh long-term impact do you feel that this project might have for the community, for the school?

LEED Platinum And Energy Wins

Chris Fischer 9:05

I think the biggest, again, I think it has a lot of great impacts. We've talked about the the mental health impacts and the equity and accessibility, all of those are key. But I think from from a future standpoint, going above and beyond that, this project is tracking for lead platinum.

Matt Gerstner 9:22

Oh, okay.

Chris Fischer 9:23

And this has not only led to a high-performing building from an energy reduction standpoint, but also from the standpoint that creates a wonderful therapeutic environment for the staff that work there every day. Um we've achieved over 80% of the regularly occupied spaces are naturally daylit.

Matt Gerstner 9:47

Oh, for real. That's very cool.

Chris Fischer 9:49

We have a lot of wood elements throughout the building giving back to and getting that idea of being exposed to natural the natural environment. And then obviously the views that go along with all that daylighting and being exposed and seeing out over the beautiful campus that it sits in. The other aspect of this is the the uh energy performances there. We were able to achieve uh a building that is ninety-one percent better than a the baseline.

Matt Gerstner 10:19

For real.

Chris Fischer 10:20

And that was primarily driven by a high performing shell.

Matt Gerstner 10:26

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Fischer 10:27

A very efficient central mechanical system that's put in place by Carlton.

Matt Gerstner 10:33

Okay.

Chris Fischer 10:34

And then renewables, in this case photovoltaics that sit on the roof of the building.

Matt Gerstner 10:40

Okay.

Chris Fischer 10:40

To get into a little bit of the specifics, we have triple pane glass on the building. Yeah, we have R30 walls and R50 roof with that. And then even from a the natural standpoint, we are able to design in a custom bird say frit on the project as well. So all of these, all of these things are thinking about the building not only how it impacts things on day one, but throughout its lifetime.

Matt Gerstner 11:07

Yeah, that's amazing. That's fantastic. You said 91% better than baseline. Yeah, that's that's a great feat to achieve. Love that.

Design Lessons Worth Repeating

Matt Gerstner 11:15

So now we we kind of got a vision for how it's going to affect them in the future. But now if we look back at the process and the results that BWBR was able to achieve, what's an aspect of this project that you might personally carry forward in your work or maybe your approach to design in general?

Chris Fischer 11:33

Well, I think as we look at the goals of our firm, yeah, this project represents the highest performing building that we've ever designed at BWBR. And so and as we look at this, this the process that went into this and the measures that we are able to input into this building, whether it's the high performing wall or or just daylighting and other things, all of these things can be taken and put into other buildings. And we do that. It's not like this is anything new, but we through the process of this building, we better understood how we can add more insulation to the wall cavity and still make it work, even on a masonry veneer scenario, right? Um we better understood how to uh look and uh dial in daylighting, I think, on this project. Okay. Smaller building. It's somewhat you could argue that well, it's easier, it's a smaller building on this, but it's always the case. Even if we can hit uh 60% or 70% daylighting, yeah, we we better understand how to get there, have the tools to help us get there.

Matt Gerstner 12:52

Yeah.

Chris Fischer 12:53

So all of that is key, and it will help us achieve our goals of better performing buildings, higher sustainability projects, and ultimately uh make you know our AI signatory goals realizable at this point.

Matt Gerstner 13:13

Well, that's fantastic. That's that th those are some great things to carry forward.

Final Thanks And Sign Off

Matt Gerstner 13:18

Chris, thank you so much for your time for being here today, giving listeners a lot to think about, a lot of great insights on this wonderful project.

Chris Fischer 13:25

Well, thanks a lot for having me, Matt. It was great to talk about it with you.

Matt Gerstner 13:29

Wonderful. And to our listeners, we'll see you next time. Thank you.