Often, an important aspect of a building’s design is the way it complements existing structures on the university or business school campus, as well as throughout the surrounding community. Examples from recent constructions are provided below:

Louisiana State University
Ourso College of Business, Business Education Complex
The architects chose a blend of modern glass, metal, and stone with sloped gabled roofs and arches that will reflect LSU’s historic Italianate style and unique beauty.

Santa Clara University
Leavey School of Business, Lucas Hall
Designed with future campus additions in mind, Lucas Hall includes an entrance way on the north side that will one day provide access from housing and parking facilities included in the university’s master plan.

University of Florida
Hough Graduate School of Business, Hough Hall
The building is an elongated H-shaped structure consistent with the neo-Gothic style of other recent construction on the school’s campus. Locally-sourced Gainesville, Florida range-red brick masonry ties the building to its surrounding community.

University of Washington
Foster School of Business, PACCAR Hall
The building is designed to match the historic context of the surrounding campus in its scale, proportion and use of materials. The combination of brick, glass, and metal on the building’s exterior is meant to combine “a respect for the character of the campus with the forward-looking nature of business education.”

University of Minnesota
Carlson School of Management, Herbert M. Hanson Jr. Hall
Though Hanson Hall is structurally distinct from the school’s previously existing Carlson School of Management Building, a key consideration in its design was that the two buildings convey a sense of complementary rather than independent purposes. The buildings have a similar design and are connected via a walkway.

Aspects of the building design may also symbolize themes, values, or other messages that the business school hopes to convey.

National University of Singapore Business School
Mochtar Riady Building
From the school’s Web site: “Inspired by the ancient Aesop fable where reeds survive storm winds and oak trees fall, the Reed-like design of the building serves as a metaphor for exceptional quality, deep flexibility and perennial stability in the face of the vicissitudes borne by business in the contemporary world. Triangulated columns rising from the ground, juxtaposed with a glass facade, the variegated exterior takes on different hues in the various shades of sunlight, with the transparency symbolising the School's open relationship with the real business world and the universe of ideas.”