The Architect’s Newspaper: Restoring University of Windsor’s Law building
For more information, please contact:
Andrea Chin, Communications Director
Email: achin@dsai.ca
Duncan Higgins, Principal
Email: dhiggins@dsai.ca
The transformation of the Ron W. Ianni Faculty of Law Building is featured in an article by Daniel Jonas Roche for The Architect’s Newspaper.
University of Windsor’s Ron W. Ianni Building is a brick building with recognizable Brutalist motifs located on the Ontario campus’s northern edge. The building, which houses the law school, was completed by Gordon S. Adamson & Associates in 1974. After years of wear and tear, the beloved facility deserved an upgrade.
Diamond Schmitt Architects, together with local office Di Maio Design Associates Architect, sought to increase natural light, improve accessibility, and add collaborative teaching and learning spaces while preserving its late modernist integrity.
“Transforming the University of Windsor’s Law Building is so much more than a renovation,” said Duncan Higgins, a principal at Diamond Schmitt. “The approach was to embrace the brutalist architectural character of the facility and its history on campus, while creating an open and collaborative space that offers flexibility for diverse modes of learning and supports the pedagogies of the 21st century.”
The Ianni Building encompasses approximately 68,000 square feet in a brick, 3-story envelope with much of the original exposed retained. Punched windows vary in shape and size across the building’s faces. These fenestrations give passersby vignettes into the Faculty of Law’s inner workings.
The Ianni Building’s former mechanical room was opened up into a sun-filled space for studying. The former student commons, previously a sunken conversation pit with a tiled floor, was raised to be accessible to all students. An open, convenience stair now connects all three floors. Other accessibility upgrades included a new elevator and all-gender washrooms located on each floor.
A law school would be incomplete without rooms for hosting mock trials. The Ianni Building’s Don Rodzik Moot Court previously had no windows and relied on artificial lighting. But new fenestration now pours natural light into the classroom-slash-courtroom.
Read the full article on The Architect's Newspaper here.