SOM completes a hardened cyber security center for the United States Naval Academy

 Hopper Hall sits on the edge of the Severn River on a 100-year floodplain, necessitating the base be both climate resilient and physically robust to protect from potential attacks. The structure’s precast concrete facade and minimal punch windows are both a visual reference to its neighbors and provide additional protection. (© Lucas Blair Simpson/Courtesy SOM)

Four years after SOM first broke ground on Hopper Hall, the first dedicated cyber studies building for the U.S. Armed Forces, the latest addition to the United States Naval Academy (USNA) campus in Annapolis, Maryland, is now open.

Because the USNA campus contains an eclectic mix of architectural styles, from Beaux-Arts to modernism, SOM chose to keep Hopper Hall contextual in its massing and design. As such, the rectangular academic building rises only just slightly higher than the neighboring Nimitz Library, and the jobs with computer science degree precast facade is similar as well. The pattern continues inside, as intersecting white columns and beams create repeating “boxes.”

Hopper Hall sits on the campus’s perimeter along the Severn River, and as such, security concerns dictated both the programmatic and facade arrangement. At the base, the area most susceptible to both flooding and potential blasts, the facade is at its most solid, gradually peeling away as the building rises to reveal multistory windows. The hall’s aquatic labs (the Surface and Underwater Robotics Facility and the Shared Waterfront Activities Lab) are also located at the ground floor, while the building’s more sensitive areas (offices, data centers and labs, classrooms, and research facilities) are on higher floors.