When VMDO Architects was hired to design a new basketball arena for the University of Virginia, the longtime Charlottesville design firm set out to give the Cavaliers a home court advantage through architecture.

“People think, wow, this is a really cool court and it’s really different than everywhere else,” said Robert W. Moje, principal of VMDO, of the 15,219-seat, $129.8 million John Paul Jones Arena. “What they don’t realize is that we intentionally designed it to give UVa a leg up.”

VMDO architects visited 15 rival colleges - including Duke University and the University of Maryland - to glean design elements from NCAA basketball powerhouses.

They learned that it is more intimidating for opposing teams to play in arenas where the seating is more vertical, rather than spread out in a large lower-deck bowl. As a result, JPJ seating was intended to make players on the court feel as if 15,000 fans are screaming directly overhead.

“It’s kind of that Christians and lions approach,” Moje said.

They also learned they could dispirit visiting teams through little touches. The opposing team’s locker room requires them to walk across the entirety of the court, exposing them to taunts from fans. And the vociferous student section was placed intentionally behind the visiting team’s second-half basket, where the students have the most impact.

VMDO also opted to eschew the typical symmetry of sports arenas, choosing instead to design a horseshoe shaped building. Consequently, it created a sheer, imposing wall that echoes the Green Monster of Fenway Park in Boston. Engraved on the wall is the famous quote from Revolutionary War naval officer John Paul Jones: “I have not yet begun to fight.”

Now, after its inaugural season in the JPJ Arena, the men’s basketball team enjoyed a nearly flawless record at home. They went undefeated in conference play and missed a perfect home season by a solitary point.

“The arena became the X-factor this season,” Moje said.

While the performance of stars Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds and coach Dave Leitao are obviously due most of the credit, UVa athletics officials said the design of JPJ gave the team a subtle edge and is helping with recruitment efforts.

“We’re very happy with the building. We went 16-1. The building is a large piece of our success,” said Jon Oliver, executive associate director of athletics at UVa.

Financially, the arena has proved similarly successful. The university’s old venue, U-Hall, collected $2.1 million in men’s basketball ticket sales during the 2005-2006 season. Ticket sales at JPJ in the 2006-2007 season, on the other hand, generated $3.6 million.

Spreading projects

VMDO was founded in 1976 by UVa architecture professor Robert Vickery. From its first project, the renovation of a dormitory at Woodberry Forest School in Orange County, the firm has specialized in educational facilities.

Located just off the Downtown Mall in the old YMCA building, VMDO’s 48 employees have designed more than 1,000 projects, including UVa’s nanotechnology lab, Davenport Field and Klockner Stadium; and Louisa County, Orange County and Waynesboro high schools.

In nearly all of its projects, VMDO has sought to influence the performance of what happens inside its buildings through architecture.

The firm’s architects are influenced by the “Medici Effect,” a concept named by author Frans Johansson that refers to how the Medici banking family financed the Renaissance. According to the theory, the most groundbreaking ideas can be found at the intersection of two unrelated fields, disciplines or cultures.

In the case of the JPJ Arena, VMDO architects sought to improve UVa basketball by finding the intersection of design and collegiate basketball.

In its other projects - mostly schools - the firm seeks to identify the intersection of architecture and teaching and learning.

“Most people think school buildings should just warehouse children and be easy to clean. That’s why a lot of schools around the country look like prisons,” said Bill Bradley, director of marketing and development at VMDO. “We try to use the medium of architecture to actually enhance teaching and learning.”

Specialization

VMDO’s goal of improving educational outcomes through design is most evident in the city of Manassas Park in Prince William County.

Over the past decade the firm has designed all three of the city’s schools, and a fourth elementary school project is under way.

“We may be the only school division in the country where every school was designed by the same architectural firm,” said Bruce McDade, associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction for Manassas Park City Schools. “That speaks volumes about how happy we’ve been with the work they’ve done for us.”

When Manassas Park incorporated as a city in 1975, its government found itself faced with the task of operating a school system without any school buildings. By the beginning of the school year, students were learning in makeshift classrooms, mostly trailers that had been lashed together.

For the next 25 years, the students were taught in the shoddy facilities. Test scores were low. Behavior problems were rampant. And few students took pride in their schools.

“Children were literally falling through the floors,” Bradley said.

In the mid-1990s, the school system hired VMDO to design a new high school and, when it opened in 1999, the results in the classroom were staggering, said McDade, the high school’s former principal.

Over the next five years, Standards of Learning test scores in math and English increased. Suspensions and expulsions dropped dramatically. And the football team - which had been previously known as a “trailer park” team - went to the state championship twice.

“The design of that building gave the students a sense of ownership and pride. It’s more than just a brick building,” McDade said. “VMDO set out to make it a place that enhances teaching and learning and that’s exactly what happened.”

The high school’s design incorporated window shades that reduced glare, while allowing in copious natural light; mirrors in the hallway to help teachers monitor students; more open spaces; and classy birch veneer paneling.

“Their success is a credit to the students and administration,” Bradley said. “They take a great deal of pride in that building. The principal likes to say that it’s his best teaching tool.”

Back to school

One of VMDO’s current projects, Poquoson Elementary School, on the Virginia peninsula, similarly incorporates design elements intended to impact learning in the classroom.

VMDO was hired to design the elementary school after Hurricane Isabel ravaged the original school in 2003.

Influenced by Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News, the new 225-student elementary school will focus on the themes of transition, sustainability and the environment.

“We decided collectively that this building would be all about water,” Bradley said.

Scheduled to open in spring 2008, the school will be a certified “green” building. Rainwater will be collected on its roof and pumped through exposed pipes to its bathrooms and the school’s cafeteria, where it will be heated for dishwashing. Rainwater will also cascade off certain points of the roof to irrigate the surrounding wetlands and a nearby football field. A pier will stretch from the school out through the wetlands.

All of the school’s windows and doors will be on the northern and southern sides, minimizing heat gain from the sun and saving air conditioning costs. Plus, it will use a geothermal heating and cooling system that runs water underground to bring it to 56 degrees - minimizing power bills. In all, Bradley said, they estimate the school will operate on 42 percent less energy than a typical school.

“This building will teach the students,” said Jonathon Lewis, superintendent of Poquoson City Public Schools. “It will teach them about resources and how scarce those resources can be. I hope it will teach them to be wise stewards of the environment and instill in them that they live in a fragile ecosystem.”

Lewis said he also expects it will give students a sense of pride about Poquoson - an Indian word meaning “flat land” or “great marsh” - and the Tidewater Region of Virginia as a whole.