The Student Agencies Building

Student Agencies (SAI) — the oldest student-run company in the US — is run by Cornell University students and provides experiential learning opportunities to Cornell Students. SAI selected HOLT to help them build a seven-story, 100-bed mixed-use luxury student residence in the heart of Ithaca’s Collegetown, a dense urban area directly off the Cornell campus and on the corner of two heavily traveled roads. SAI wanted to enhance the student experience by bringing students into Collegetown and providing a residence that would help them balance the sense of campus community with independent living.

HOLT worked with SAI stakeholders and students throughout the project to garner critical input on what they liked from existing area housing and other top priorities they would like to see incorporated.

The result is a facility with a variety of community and private amenities — fitness rooms, study rooms, onsite laundry, and full kitchens in each unit. The amenities also extend outside the building walls to a park-like setting that features benches, tables, and many other areas for impromptu engagements.

Architecturally, the site sits between traditional 1900’s “main street” and the contemporary architecture on the Cornell campus. The design has taken great strides to be contextual to the environment around it. On the west, the building is contextual to the street, mirroring the materiality, datums, and fenestration of the other historic buildings on the block. Around the corner on the north, the building takes a different shape — a contemporary floating glass box designed to reflect the adjacent gorge and the campus.