Johns Hopkins University’s long-awaited consolidation and relocation of its Graduate Division of Business and Management programs on a prominent site in the heart of a city’s downtown presented the challenge of imaginatively adapting, reusing and adding to an abandoned clothing store built in 1963.

The school’s former facility occupied the upper floors of a mixed use complex which was ubiquitously clad in a dark brown brick. The complex was pushed back from the street edge, and was often in the shadow of adjacent high-rise apartment towers. Its entrance was blurred among the various entries of the complex.