Completed
2002The new Hillel House at Trinity College provides Jewish students, the campus, and the community with the educational, social, cultural, and their religious resources to explore and celebrate the Jewish identity.
The site for the Hillel House is a long narrow parcel between two existing houses on the boundary between the campus center and the adjacent residential neighborhood. It is approached from the campus on one side and from the neighborhood on the other.
Conceived as part of the ensemble of campus and neighborhood, the building form is a slender rectilinear block, similar in footprint to the existing houses, with a main entry facing the campus, and a secondary entry facing the neighborhood street. The building’s gabled roof has a diagonal ridge so that it is asymmetrical and distinctly public in scale on the campus side, and centered to echo residential rooflines facing the neighborhood. The exterior of cedar, glass, and warm colored limestone enclose two stories of activity rooms and supporting spaces. The most actively used spaces- Dining Room on the first floor and the Function Room with a lofty ceiling on the second floor- face the campus. Quieter activites- an intimate Living Room on the first floor and a spacious Library on the second- face the street. At the center of the house, a full kosher kitchen, meeting, and office spaces support the large room activities.
With its dynamic roofline and openness of its main rooms, the house welcomes Jewish students and the Trinity community, and creates a positive and energetic presence in the surrounding neighborhood.
