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would tie together several specific needs identified in the
review of the campus. Principal Alan Dynerman, FAIA,
combined these diverse programmatic needs in a single
building that speaks to the surrounding architecture
while also providing a dynamic welcome to the campus
from a once-neglected vehicular entrance now often
used by visiting prospective students.
In its materials, massing, and roofline, Hodson House
recalls the colonial architecture ubiquitous throughout
the city. The red brick matches nearby buildings in both
color and pattern. The steeply pitched roof mirrors the
roofline of the nearby Charles Carroll the Barrister [sic]
House that serves as the admissions office (and which
holds the distinction of being the first structure designated
as historic in the city). Dynerman played with the traditional
forms, however, bringing the steep lines of the roof down
to the top of the first floor and filling the gabled ends
with large windows. The interplay of the large gable and
the rectilinear, brick-clad volumes bracketing it gives the
building a distinctly modern feel.
The expansive windows also allow people outside
to see what is happening inside—a perspective that is
not available in other, more opaque campus buildings.
This transparency—both literal and figurative—reminds
people both inside and outside of the importance of
interaction and conversation.
In fact, the windows of Hodson House look out onto
what is aptly named the Conversation Garden. The garden
was designed along with Hodson House as a joint
effort between Dynerman Architects and the landscape
architecture firm of Nelson Byrd Woltz. As the name
suggests, the garden serves as a place where students
and faculty can continue the conversations begun in
classes and seminars. It is meant to be a place of reflection
and interaction.
Programmatically, Hodson House also echoes the rest
of campus. During the master plan process, Dynerman
noticed that though the campus is idyllic, it also has an
urban quality because of its small-scale, multi-function
buildings. He wanted to keep with this pattern and
combine uses in Hodson House, which is how it came to
house three distinct needs: a seminar/conference room,
faculty offices, and administrative offices for development
and alumni affairs. The mixing of functions also fulfilled
another objective: ensuring that the building would be
used throughout the day, keeping a once-quiet part of
campus lit, active, and, as a result, safer.
Dynerman was attentive to the ways the surrounding
community interacts with and uses the St. John’s campus.
He noted that because the campus has been a part of
Annapolis since before the 1700s, the two are interwoven.
St. John’s students use Annapolis as both an extension of
and escape from campus, studying in coffee shops and
relaxing in town. Community residents use the campus
for leisure and cultural enrichment, walking through the
green and attending concerts, the museum, and lectures.
The Conversation Garden was conceived as another
place for this relationship between college and city
to grow.
Forecourt and entry
to Hodson House.
48 AN ARCHITECTURAL CONVERSATION