Rocky Top Dining Hall at UTK Earns BIA's Brick in Architecture Award

Simmons STUDIO Architects and Johnson Architecture of Knoxville earned a Brick in Architecture Award from the Brick Industry Association for their co-designed 1,200 seat dining hall. The Rocky Top facility is the new hub of student life at UT Knoxville, and the centerpiece of the West Campus Redevelopment project at the University of Tennessee, a collection of collegiate neo-Gothic structures weaved together with a rich fabric of brick, stone and clay tile roofs. The project captured the Silver Higher Education 2023 Award from the BIA.

The $42.5M project uses over 300,000 bricks from General Shale Brick Co., laid by Gentry & Painter, Inc., and features a monumental brick hearth in the fifty foot tall main dining hall. “The sustainable choice for 100-year building design is masonry, and the durable beauty of the material continues to shine in high-performance building design,” notes Bob Simmons, founder of Simmons STUDIO Architects.

Atrium Stair Robert Batey Photography

West Campus Dining Commons and Pedestrian Promenade Robert Batey Photography

Reinventing Dining for a Pandemic-Prepared World

al Fresco Dining Pavilion Opens to the Sky via Retractable Fabric Roof

How do campuses and companies, both large and small, provide safe gathering for dining in a pandemic and prepare for the next one? In a conceptual design study for a major northeastern college, Simmons STUDIO proposed creating an adaptable al fresco dining pavilion. It is adaptable to be open to the sky, or on rainy or hot days, the translucent fabric roof can close to create a shady and weathertight area. Steam-heated bench seats, and radiant panels allow for sustainable comfort all year round, with fresh air in abundance.

Two covered open-air cooking venues will serve the area to provide food with an extremely low carbon footprint. The design eliminates the extremely wasteful exhaust hood ventilation that is required indoors, which involves heating outside air, and then immediately expelling it through an expensive exhaust system, which produces massive GHG emissions. Learn more...

Dining Pavilion Can Also Double as an Outdoor Sheltered Event Venue

West Campus Dining Commons at UT Knoxville to Open Soon

SimmonsSTUDIO Architects of Boston, MA and Johnson Architecture, Inc. of Knoxville, TN are thrilled to announce that construction on 81,700 SF of new construction for the West Campus Dining Commons will soon be complete.

The centerpiece of the six acre West Campus Redevelopment at UT Knoxville, the project will provide an innovative 1,300-seat dining venue offering a state-of-the-art exhibition cooking experience, designed by Ricca Design Studios, for the campus. The project will include a campus convenience store and an in-house bakery offering fresh baked goods, and a venue for late night service.

The dining spaces will focus outward toward views of the Smokey Mountain skyline on the horizon. The Johnson Ward Mall project, designed by CRJA/IBI landscape architects, will green the boulevard along the front of the building, incorporating water garden bioswales to calm and filter storm water.

The building itself will act as a connector for the campus as well, bringing the upper and lower parts of the steeply graded hilltop site together, with ADA access by elevator that is open 24/7 as well.