Imagining new possibilities from the inside out at historic Richardson Olmsted Campus

BUFFALO, N.Y. ­— A longtime architect and educator, Miguel Guitart, PhD, believes in preserving the historic integrity of original structures when imagining a new space.

Guitart, associate professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University at Buffalo, integrated this philosophy into a six-credit studio he led this semester for graduate students at the iconic Richardson Olmsted Campus, which is more than 145 years old.

For the project, “My Neighbor Upstairs,” 17 students created eight different designs for 20-some apartments and a ground-floor public space within Building 13. The long-vacant former daylight factory sits adjacent to the Richardson Complex, located on Forest Avenue in Buffalo. The studio is an interactive experience for students in the second semester of their three-year graduate program.

The 42-acre Richardson Olmsted Campus, which now includes the Richardson Hotel, is a National Historic Landmark.

“In Buffalo, we have such amazing buildings,” Guitart says. “Many of them are derelict or abandoned after decades of economic problems. We need to rethink how we reuse them rather than demolishing them and building anew. And, of course, this connects with issues of energy, material efficiency and material circulation.”

Built in 1924 when the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane was housed in the Richardson Complex, Building 13 served as a dining room for male patients. After patients were moved to more modern facilities in the 1970s, the building housed an electrical manufacturing company that operated until the mid-1990s. It has stood vacant since then.

“This is a gorgeous building with generous windows,” Guitart says. “But it hasn’t been occupied in 30 years. When we visited, many of the windows were broken, and pigeons were flying in. There was enormous potential.”

The students, in teams of two or three, were given the opportunity to imagine demolishing the interior structure and the two circulation cores, while keeping the façade and roof intact. Guitart instructed them to think of space in a sectional way. All the units were required to double the standard ceiling height or have some sort of height variation.

“This would allow their work to avoid a pancaked solution — a purely horizontal set of floors,” he says. “They would have to think how those floors interact, sometimes physically, sometimes visually. In many cases, they also needed to consider how light goes through the units and the ground floor, producing a number of very interesting sectional solutions.”

To begin the collaboration, Guitart contacted Paris Roselli, president of the Richardson Olmsted Campus, whom he says has been incredibly supportive and excited about the project.

Roselli, who joined the Richardson campus at the end of 2022, says he welcomes collaborations with UB.

“We see ourselves as a laboratory for projects like these as we work to reactivate the campus,” he says. “The student designs highlight what might be possible through an adaptive reuse reimagining.”

In this case, it’s housing, which Roselli says they would like to see integrated into the fabric of the campus.

“This level of creativity helps others, including our developer partners and funders, see what might be possible in a way that cannot be conveyed by conversation alone, as we try to take back the campus building by building,” he says.

Guitart and the students designed the first floor as a space for cultural events, tied into the Lipsey Architecture Center Buffalo that is scheduled to open next year, along with the nearby Burchfield Penney Art Center and the Buffalo AKG Art Museum.

“This sequence of cultural buildings justifies a ground floor with some flexible program that could connect with these sequence of other buildings that are related to cultural issues,” Guitart says. “This allowed us to think circulation for visitors versus circulations for residents, which I considered an important discussion, especially as the proposals had to integrate private spaces versus public areas.”

The studio culminated with a series of large-scale models and a final presentation in Crosby Hall. The public can view the students’ designs in an exhibition on the first floor of the Richardson Hotel’s Olmsted wing throughout the summer.

In addition, a book detailing the design studio and the proposals, “My Neighbor Upstairs: Eight Housing Proposals for Richardson Olmsted Campus. A Model for Architectural Reuse in America,” edited by Guitart, will be published this summer by Buffalo Heritage Press, an imprint of City of Light Publishing.

It’s coming out at a time when the Richardson Olmsted Campus is enjoying a renaissance of sorts, following a halt caused by the pandemic.

“These structures are really incredible,” Guitart says. “The campus is making an amazing effort to bring these abandoned buildings back to life. Of course, it’s not easy. It requires a lot of investment. But I think it’s a fascinating moment.”