Maryland Hillel

Maryland Hillel's new home is a 40,000-square-foot mixed-use building serving students at the University of Maryland, College Park.

The program includes a large dining room and kosher kitchen, a café, classrooms, prayer spaces, offices, a student lounge, a demonstration kitchen and study areas.

Columns define a portico at the front of the building: a welcoming entry that also refers to the porticos found across the University of Maryland campus. The portico's columns continue across the front to form an arcade, a space that straddles inside and outside. They stay exposed throughout the building and carry on to the Sukkah Terrace, where they support the trellis. The question behind the design: what if an entire building could be conceived as a welcoming portico?

Vertical was responsible for space programming and schematic design, and then served as design architect and developer's representative. Its partner firm, Curry Architects, was the Architect of Record.