Dartmouth Unbuilding and other topics

Posted on 12.09.2021 by Regisseur

The smart brick rear ell of Wheelock House, a century-old two-story-above-basement book stacks addition built for the Howe Library, was demolished last month by the Eleazar Wheelock Society.
Commencement this year took place at Memorial Field for the first time since 1995. The stage was at the opposite end of the field this year. It would be interesting to learn whether the Commencement canopy is the same one that was first acquired for that 1995 ceremony and has been used every year since. Perhaps there have been different ones.
Frank J. Barrett’s new book is called Lost Hanover, New Hampshire (Amazon.com). Julia Robitaille has a Q and A with the author in The Dartmouth (2 July 2021).
The Dartmouth Indoor Practice Facility is now the Graham Indoor Practice Facility.
Photos of the CECS show it really taking shape. The Irving is also coming along. The Call to Lead has a page on new projects on campus that includes a West End video showing interior models of the two buildings (as well as close-ups of the globe finial following the removal of Baker’s weathervane).
DHMC Patient Tower, an appealingly midcentury hospital building by HDR (designers of The Williamson), is slated to stand at the north end of the hospital and join the main building between the bastions of the existing patient towers (Vermont Digger). The site is visible at the right of this iconic aerial.
At the trustees’ meeting in June, “[t]he board approved the expenditure of $2.89 million to advance designs for energy infrastructure projects and $1.65 million to support campus housing renewal design development. Board members also voted to allocate $6.9 million for information technology infrastructure work.”
The college website is being redesigned (Dartmouth News).
The IEEE has put up a plaque on the exterior of Collis (College Hall) to commemorate its importance as the site where BASIC was developed in the 1960s (Dartmouth News). The plaque would be better if it were actually written as a BASIC program, thus proving the simplicity of the language, but this is still good to see. (The BASIC highway marker, because of the limitations of the state’s marker program, is distant from the site where the event actually took place.)
Harvard Law School has replaced its old heraldic shield with a new shield in the form of a logo.

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[Update 09.13.2021: A reference to a “new” globe finial replacing the Baker weathervane has been corrected. The globe previously underpinned the weathervane and was left in place when the weathervane was removed.]

Various topics including two West End flythroughs

Posted on 05.06.2021 by Regisseur

The experience design page at Arup has a small blurb about the Hopkins Center project with a conceptual illustration. It is difficult to tell what space the image depicts, but it could be a new room built within the Hop Courtyard.
This has not been mentioned much, but the architect of record for the Snøhetta Hop project is EYP (see “Snøhetta to redesign Dartmouth College’s arts center,” The Construction Specifier (15 February 2021)). EYP is doing a lot in Hanover these days, including some of the Dartmouth Row remodelings. The firm also conducted studies that are leading up to the new power plant/green energy project.
See Katie Angen, “Dartmouth’s 1960s-era Anonymous Hall makes a name for itself with 2030 overhaul,” The Architect’s Newspaper (31 March 2021); David Malone, “Dartmouth College’s new faculty and graduate student center completes,” Building Design + Construction (26 February 2021); Matthew Marani, “With an Array of Sustainability Measures, Dartmouth’s Newest Building Stands Above the Pack,” Metropolis (2 June 2021). Some articles about Anonymous Hall refer to the space to the north as “a north quad,” which is fine, but others refer to “North Quad,” which does not seem right.
The current images for the Dartmouth Hall remodeling show the subtle front podium. At the moment, the project update page has an excellent photo of a shutterless building with scaffolding around the cupola. The renovation of the Charles Rich-designed building involves the insertion of new structural steel framing and concrete floors (Amar Scherzer, “Thornton Hall renovation to finish in summer, Irving Institute construction to complete in fall,” The Dartmouth (11 May 2021)).
A nice flythrough video shows the CECS building; for some reason the markings on the glass bridge that will indicate where the extra ten-foot segment was added do not appear in the video. Oh well. Instead of “Kemeny Hardenberg,” as shown on the HGA page, the entrance to the building in the video now reads “Center for Engineering and Computer Science.” How is the abbreviation pronounced, by the way — is it Kex or Secs? The North to West Utility Extension page shows how very large the building is.
There are several new photos of the Irving under construction and a new flythrough video available on the building’s project page. It is so good to see the facade of the old Murdough Center, its glass hoarding now white-framed instead of black, preserved within the new atrium.
Old news: the college constructed a pair of 60 x 120 skating rinks on the Green in January, and a light installation was installed in the Bema in February.
A fascinating study of early 19th-century parasitic infection has emerged from the summer 2019 archaeological work at the Choate House site on Wentworth Street (Amy Olson, “Studying 200-Year-Old Privy on Campus Hits Pay Dirt,” Dartmouth News (3 May 2021)). The recent growth in campus archaeology continues to thrill (and to revive a sense of regret over potential missed opportunities in the 1990s, including on the southeast corner of the Green).
Something’s going on around here: The privy article refers to “Dartmouth Libraries’ Baker-Berry Library” and the recent iconography article refers to “Dartmouth Library’s Baker Library.” Surely a reader of the official Dartmouth News website is not going to mistake Baker for a constituent facility of the Town of Hanover’s Howe Library? On a somewhat-related note, the new Indoor Practice Facility displays the words DARTMOUTH INDOOR PRACTICE FACILITY. Why the “DARTMOUTH”? Could it be mistaken for a Hanover High facility? Perhaps the word is just standing in for the name of a donor.
Influential planning historian John Reps died on November 12 (Edith Fikes and Patti Witten, “Urban planning historian John W. Reps dies at age 98,” Cornell Chronicle (25 November 2020)). He became interested in maps at Dartmouth, where he was a member of the Class of 1943. His history of his collecting is worth a read.
The book Beneath the Green: The Map at Dartmouth is a 2019 collection of student projects from Mary Flanagan’s mapmaking class.
See Merideth Barnett, “Honoring the Past, Shifting for the Future,” Currents Magazine (1 May 2021) for a look at campus traditions that includes Dartmouth among its examples. In this article, “advancement professionals and higher education researchers share why traditions endure, how they shift, and what role advancement today plays in celebrating and shaping them.”
Here is an interesting college tradition: digging up a different buried bottle of seeds every 20 years (Cara Giaimo, “One of the World’s Oldest Science Experiments Comes Up From the Dirt,” New York Times (21 April 2021).

Various topics, including unbuilt buildings

Posted on 29.01.2021 by Regisseur

An article in The Dartmouth notes the completion of work on Reed and Baker and the start of work on Dartmouth Hall.
The HGA [architects] page for the CECS building has an image showing main entrance with the name KEMENY HARDENBERG above the door.
The Goody Clancy page on the Irving Institute is up.
What might have been: The central and right-hand groups of images on Samer Afifi’s site show (1) a more traditionally-massed CECS on the site where it is now being built and (2) a very unfortunately sited Irving Institute way back on the River Cluster site — not only distant from any important campus axis but also blocking any further Tuck School expansion.
This has been noted here before, but it is always fun to see: A Kliment/Halsband-designed addition to the Shower Towers to house Sudikoff. It looks perfectly pleasant, but it must have been overtaken by VSBA planning for Berry Row.
Kellogg Auditorium, perhaps the only building at Dartmouth named for a room, has been renamed Kellogg Hall and renovated as a classroom building. It opened last fall (Susan Green, “Newly Renovated and Renamed Kellogg Hall Opens” (29 September 2020)).
Dartmouth News has a piece on the importance of the DHMC parking lot as a social space in pandemic times.
Many outlets, including the Concord Monitor, have written about the huge college-affiliated apartment complex that will be built on Route 120 at Mt. Support Road.
The Davison Block, a prominent and historic commercial building at the top of Main Street in downtown Hanover, has been sold by the Davison family, reports the Valley News.
The Valley News also had an article on a sort of Christkindlmarkt that was set up in Hanover over the holidays. Fantastic. So many nice touches could be added to downtown, especially on South Main Street above Lebanon Street, whether by raising the street level (happening?), adding bollards, or limiting traffic and parking. An inviting town square could be delineated in front of the Municipal Building.
The Valley News reports on the college’s pullback from the idea of a new biomass heating plant. This is probably good news for the preservation of the old smokestack.
There are some great photos in the annual roundup of shots by Dartmouth photographers. The aerial of Baker Lawn does look like a De Stijl painting, as noted. It might look even more like a work in batik, an impression created by the imperfections in the edges of the paths and the snow-covered roofs.

The College Street sidewalk and other topics

Posted on 24.10.2020 by Regisseur

The college is replacing some of the glass curtain walls on the Black Family Visual Arts Center, including the large etched glass window that clad the upper levels of the building over the west (campus) entrance (former link). The replacement glass here and over the south entrance will be less distracting and provide better management of daylight. The etched design over the west entrance, however lovely up close, did always look from a distance like creeping frost or condensation inside a multipane window whose seal had failed.
Very interesting: the college is putting a lot of effort into installing a sidewalk along College Street north of the site of the old DG House (see North College Street Sidewalk weekly update). Sidewalks are good, and this one must have been deemed necessary, but there was something romantic about the way College Park spilled wildly toward the shoulder of the road, untamed. Just look at this barely-trammeled wilderness, as seen in Google Street View during July 2019:

At any rate, the project involves what appears to be a hand-laid stone retaining wall intended as a counterpart to the existing wall to the south. (Does that existing wall incorporate foundation stones from the Victorian DG House?)
Dartmouth News has a video on the wooden sculpture by Ursula von Rydingsvard called Wide Babelki Bowl that now stands northwest of Rollins Chapel. (It is not really a southern counterpart to Thel; that honor was held by Telemark Shortline, which has been removed.) As Jessica Hong notes in the video, the sculpture has a definite kinship with the cyclopean masonry of Rollins; it is also reminiscent of the multi-stone sculptures of Angkor Wat.
The college is going ahead with the DOC House renovation (project page) with funding from the Class of 1969. Compare the project page image with the image at The Call to Lead to see the exterior changes on the Occom Pond facade.
It is not clear if there is an earlier public mention than this April 20 article, but the trim Sports Pavilion by Burnham Field that was built in 2007 and expanded a decade later has finally been given a name: Reilly Pavilion.
Housing developer Michaels Student Living will build an $84 million graduate student housing complex on Mt. Support Road, near the hospital, in coordination with the college (see renderings in Dartmouth News release, site plan in The Dartmouth). The designer is JSA Design of Portsmouth (Boston Real Estate Times).
The Valley News reports that plans are afoot to save the Hanover Country Club as a nine-hole course. The northern two-thirds of the course, comprising holes seven through 15, would be used in the new course; the southern portion of the course, lying south of the bulk of Pine Park and including the clubhouse area and the bridge over Girl Brook, would be made available for possible college expansion.
The Valley News has a story on a new cold chamber to be built at CRREL.
The steel frame of the Irving Institute has been topped off (Dartmouth News).
Most construction projects, including the construction of a large dormitory at the corner of Crosby and Wheelock Streets, are on hold, reported The Dartmouth in June.
Vermonter Putnam Blodgett ’53 died on March 20 (Valley News). He led the Moosilauke advisory committee, and his woods were the source of the unique forked white pine called Slingshot that supports the second-level bridge as well as the roof of the new Ravine Lodge (see photos in Jim Collins, Welcome to the Woods, DAM (Jan-Feb 2018)). I recall him at the 1995 Senior Symposium talking about the 1949 Tug of War: apparently the regular tug of war between the freshmen and the seniors had come to be seen as too large and dangerous, so the college placed a huge log between the opposing teams and attached multiple ropes to each side. Unfortunately, one of the ropes came loose and the log went flying in the opposite direction, toward the side with more pulling force. He said it was a miracle that no one was badly injured.
A ring bearing the letter “Z” featured prominently in a photo in the July 24 Washington Post story on the Pebble Mine project in Alaska. The photograph, by Alex Milan Tracy, showed the right hand of then-CEO Tom Collier, a U.Va. graduate. It’s a safe bet that the ring indicates membership in the Z Society (Wikipedia).

Crosby Street dorm off the table and other news

Posted on 05.04.2020 by Regisseur

The construction of the Indoor Practice Facility is nearly finished (see Big Green Alert). The school’s existing indoor practice facility, Leverone Field House, is being eyed as a site for a temporary hospital ward during the pandemic (Valley News). The west wing of Alumni Gym is also under consideration (Valley News).
This interesting tidbit appeared at the end of a board news release about new trustees:

The new board members were elected at the board’s spring meeting, held this year at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.

That seems like a first. The main news release (issued 1 March) has more information:

The board met at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., where they engaged in wide-ranging conversations with a diverse group of Stanford leaders including trustees, the former and current presidents, the provost, faculty in leadership positions, and representatives from departments across campus.

Not sure what to make of that, whether the learning opportunities were added to enhance the remote meeting or the meeting was held on the other side of the continent specifically in order to learn from Stanford.
Shattuck’s Revenge. At the Stanford meeting, the board approved a capital budget to fund projects that include “include renovation of Thornton Hall; planning and design of the Dartmouth Hall renovation; planning for proposed projects with private developers, including graduate housing and energy infrastructure; and” other projects. An interesting mention is made of $3 million “for planning and schematic design to explore the renovation and expansion of the Choates residence halls and the East Wheelock residential complex,” and funding for the future Hop renovation (still on the table!) and construction of teaching and research spaces is also noted. Not a word, however, on the Crosby Street dorm, which has been in planning for more than two years now. The project page for the design of the building was quietly removed from the Campus Services website during the last few weeks.
Irving Oil Co. has a rendering of the Irving Institute that differs in detail from the other images out there.
The college launched its capital campaign two years ago at Duggal Greenhouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Some photos from the event show considerable attention to detail: the use of Dartmouth Ruzicka lettering on the front facade; the model (15′ high?) of the bonfire, reimagined as a cocktail table; and the plaster/pasteboard renderings of Baker Tower and the main buildings of Tuck, Thayer, and Geisel (it’s white, but it’s a reasonably accurate rendition of the school’s ex-hospital building on Maynard Street).
Unrelated even to architecture: Although it is not unusual to hear of a company that has been operating since 1905, it is unusual to find one that has been making the same product since its beginning. How odd would it be if that product were a Morse code key? Take a look at Vibroplex and its Original Standard key. This is not quite an example of Ferry Porsche’s theory that the last car ever to be built will be a sports car (see Porsche’s site), because the FCC seems to effectively subsidize the use of Morse Code by prohibiting other modes of communication on certain radio frequencies, but it is close.

The fine line between clever and stupid

Posted on 07.02.2020 by Regisseur

A new site plan for the new dorm by the gym shows some refinement. The “bridge” element facing Crosby Street looks like the main entrance and responds to what planning analyses have identified as a major pedestrian route — the parking lot of the Heat Plant and Vox Lane. That’s nice, and one hopes the emphasis on this route helps cement the place of McKenzie and the Store House. But a good percentage of visitors to the new dorm will be arriving at the front of the building, at the Wheelock Street corner. No path is shown there. The construction timeline states “Commence Completion of Design phase – dependent on fundraising.”
Dana Biomedical Library, reconstructed as Dana Hall, has been renamed Anonymous Hall (Dartmouth News, Valley News). Unlike, say, Nameless Field at U.Va., the building does not lack a namesake; its namesake is simply undisclosed. What would be an unfunny move if committed by the administration might be saved by the fact that it was requested by the donor of the renovation. The Guiarini School (formerly the School of Graduate and Advanced Studies) is headquartered in Anonymous Hall. The building contains a DDS cafe called Ramekin Cafe.
More Irving renderings are available and a time-lapse video of construction is on line.
Dartmouth Ruzicka is being rolled out on the school’s websites, a December article explains.
Berry Mall has been torn up as part of the project to extend utilities to the west end of campus.
The maples on the south end of the Green are coming down. They did always seem a bit diminutive for the space; too round in comparison to the elms, or something.
An article in The Dartmouth explains the Fifty.
A well drilled on the Green is being tested for use in a geoexchange system like the one in use at Fahey-McLane.
A Valley News article on the projected library storage building.
Lawrence Biemiller has a bit on the Hood in a post on lessons that campus buildings have taught.
The college is in a partnership with a developer to build hundreds of apartment units for graduate and professional students near the hospital (Union Leader, Dartmouth News). It is hard to imagine how this could be anything but sprawl, but we will see.
BGA Daily has photos of the indoor practice facility. It looks like the renderings! One does hope that the building will connect to the brick gateway of Scully Fahey Field, although it looks doubtful. There is a curious kind of preservation going on with the brick pier of the Boss Tennis Center: BGA Daily photo.
An article on the new painting at the Skiway.
Rauner Library has an exhibit on slavery at Dartmouth.
The Reed Hall renovation designed by EYP is beginning (Dartmouth News).
Some U.Va. students are saving the old card catalog that was being removed from the main library building (Washington Post), and the U.Va. administration is starting a campaign of plaques, markers, and tours focused on the history of the institution.
If you enjoy Kate Wagner’s McMansion Hell, you’ll enjoy her “Duncing about Architecture” in the New Republic, about a proposed executive order titled “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again.” The group behind the proposed order, National Civic Art Society, counts the founder of Joe’s Dartblog among the members of its board of directors.

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Update 02.09.2020: NCAS item added.

Hell Gate Cabin burns, and other news

Posted on 21.11.2019 by Regisseur

Valley News reports that the 1974 Hell Gate Gorge Cabin in the Grant burned to the ground this week.
A Dartmouth News story profiles the Band; at the recent Yankee Stadium football game against Princeton, the marching bands of the two schools combined for a halftime performance.
Construction on the Irving began in October and will involve the demolition of the northeast corner of Murdough. The current rendering of the interior atrium of Irving is labeled “no beehive.” Presumably the beehive is the stepped hemispherical-roofed conference room (?) that dominated the lower left corner of earlier renderings. Presumably the roof is just omitted from the rendering rather than dropped from the design; the boat-hull jetty on the left side of the stair looks like the base of the beehive.
Valley News reports that DHMC has submitted its expansion plans to the Town of Lebanon; the hospital is going with a bigger parking lot by Jesse’s rather than a multilevel parking deck.
Ledyard Canoe Club is celebrating its centennial.
There are more twists and turns in the story of the plans for the new heating plant (Dartmouth News). The college seems to be looking at options other than a biomass plant.
VTDigger has an article on petroglyphs in Brattleboro submerged since 1909.

Historical archeology on campus and other topics

Posted on 22.09.2019 by Regisseur

News of an archeological dig on the site of Choate House, on Wentworth Street is thrilling; one hopes that such digs take place all over Hanover. Comparing the younger and larger state-supported University of Virginia is not really appropriate, but U.Va. seems constantly to be conducting digs, such as this one last summer.
In posts of August 17 and September 20, Big Green Alert Daily has photos of the Indoor Practice Facility going up.
The Valley News has an article on DHMC plans for a northward expansion (see also a later article without the plan). The expansion will go between the arms of the vee at the north entrance:
Campus Services has a nice interactive map of projects around campus.
The Rauner Blog has a post on Charles L. Hildreth of the class of 1901 and his campus cyanotypes.
The Valley News has an article about a class that studied the college’s connection to farming and put up an exhibit in the Berry Brickway Gallery.
The Engineering/CS construction update page has a photo of the extensively-rerouted Thayer Drive with this caption: “The new access road (to be named Thayer Drive) is almost complete. The drive begins at West Wheelock, turns left behind the residence halls to Channing Cox parking lot, and around to the back of MacLean Science Center.”
The Digital Library Program is running a great project called Image of the Week.
One of these things is not like the others. Once the OCD visual identity came out, we knew it was possible, but still we hoped it wouldn’t happen: the college has begun to replace the Dartmouth shield with the D-Tree. The school has started with the official letterhead of all places:

The D-Tree itself is nice, especially as an athletic logo, but it’s not a shield. And while the college might have good reason to take the midcentury Dartmouth shield out of its letterhead, it should commission a new shield for that purpose, as part of a new heraldic coat of arms. See, for example, this proposal from 1995.

Didn’t anyone find it notable that every one of the four Associated Schools now finally has a shield that depicts the Connecticut River in its base, just as the Dartmouth shield does?
The Valley News reports that the college submitted a new plan for the Thayer/CS building, this time showing its location accurately. After the building opens, wouldn’t it be neat if someone painted a line on the bridge that connects the building to MacLean to show where it was meant to stand? If the college is unable to muster the humility required, then some wry engineering student group ought to do it, in secret.
The PBS Newshour has a story on the Hood and its unconventional presentation of out-of-the-mainstream art. See also the good art-centered review in Apollo Magazine and the review in Dezeen. Architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien received honorary degrees at Commencement.
Rauner Library Blog has a post on a 1946 proposal for a Canadian flag with a profusion of stars, including the Big Dipper (compare the Alaska Flag, at Wikipedia).
A Valley News article from June describes a tour offered by the Lebanon Heritage Commission.

Replacing the River stair, the one made of earth and wood, and other topics

Posted on 02.07.2019 by Regisseur

Dartmouth News reports that the college has dedicated Baker’s main interior hall “in honor of Richard Reiss Jr. ’66, who made a $10 million gift to pursue innovative means to explore, analyze, and create knowledge.” Good news, and the lettering (“REISS HALL”) below the lunette at the end of the old Catalogue Room looks great. This was going to be a comment about the confusion of “hall” (meaning “building”) for “hall” (meaning “room” or “corridor”) but it looks like the WPA Guide to New Hampshire (1938) calls the Catalog Room “the Delivery Hall,” so it might be that there is no harm done.
The college is demolishing the erratic old timber stair that runs from the boathouses up the hill to the River Cluster:In its place will be a metal slat stair that is raised off the ground (Planning Board minutes 2 April 2019 pdf). This project seems long overdue, but as usual one is compelled to praise the old stair, which was dark, irregular, organic, and integrated into the terrain, with an aesthetic more Moosilauke than Main Street. It provided a fitting transition between the slick campus buildings and the dangerous Connecticut River.
The college intends to build the Irving Institute “on top of an existing structure and renovate portions of that building” (Planning Board minutes 7 May 2019 pdf). That’s interesting. The old Cook Auditorium in Murdough will still exist, and the plaza on top of it (the characteristic brick-surface landscaping of Campbell, Aldrich & Nulty) will support the floor of the Irving atrium.
The Eleazar Wheelock Society has applied “to remove additions, renovate main block, and construct new ell, with associated site improvements” at the Wheelock Mansion House (Planning Board minutes 7 May 2019 pdf).
Creating a Port of Hanover as an entrepôt for produce coming downriver from the Organic Farm is unrealistic, but a College Barge would make a plausible addition to the waterfront. Not necessarily the Oxford type of barge (see St. John’s Barge), though that would be great for viewing boat races, but more akin to a broad houseboat, meant to provide temporary dormitory space when it is needed. In the Bronx, there is a permanent prison on a barge:
Abbott-Downing’s Concord Coaches at Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter.
This is another post on Campus Galli, the project to build a monastery following the (idealized and possibly just metaphorical) Plan of St. Gall, a centuries-long undertaking. Hyper-long term projects are appealing in this modern age; see also Agnes Denes’ Tree Mountain in Finland, intended to be maintained for 400 years.
A fascinating history of the ska-man emoji.

Irving revealed

Posted on 06.10.2018 by Regisseur

The college has released several images of the planned building of the Irving Institute at the west end of Tuck Mall.

Goody Clancy, the architecture firm that designed the building, appears to be well regarded by Tuck. Goody Clancy designed Whittemore (1999-2000) and the LLC (2007-2008), a set of connected buildings behind the Murdough Center.

The Institute is straightforward. It is not a “look at me” building, but it is not a shrinking violet either. It needs to be straightforward to live up to the outsized role it has been given in campus-making. A building has been needed here for 50 years, and it almost seems a matter of happenstance that an energy institute is the occupant of this one.

The long, shallow brick range with its steeply-pitched gable makes one think of Centerbrook Architects, maybe that firm’s UConn Chemistry Building.

The flat-roofed glass frontispiece is a bit like the Rauner jewel box. The frontispiece is itself fronted by a minimalist and possibly “High Tech”-style quadristyle temple front, if you could call it that. Again there is no gable, just a flat roof that protrudes to the sides as a set of “wings”; a bit Deco, a bit nautical, a bit like James Stirling’s No. 1 Poultry in London of 1997 (Wikipedia).

The use of the white-painted steel design language, in this building, seems to indicate connections and bridges, and it references nicely the Koetter Kim bridge built in 2006 to connect Murdough and Thayer:

The most remarkable of the new images is the interior view. That cantilevered, glassed-in second-floor corridor visible on the left is the existing black jetty of Murdough:

West End work beginning

Posted on 12.09.2018 by Regisseur

The Thayer School expansion involves a lot of changes to an entire district of the campus. Campus Services has information on the overall project.

The page describes the new Thayer School building:

The proposed building, to be located south of the Maclean Engineering Sciences Center, will be constructed over a new three-level parking garage. The garage will replace Cummings lot, and will significantly increase the number of parking spaces in this area. This project will also change the flow of traffic along West Wheelock Street and throughout the West End. Thayer Drive will close, and a new access road will be constructed specifically to provide access to the parking garage, and Thayer loading docks and the Channing Cox parking lot. Old Tuck Drive will be reconstructed and reopened to support one-way traffic heading from west to east. Improvements to the intersection of West Wheelock, West Street, and the new access road will also be made to improve access and safety of pedestrians, cyclists and drivers.

Dartmouth News has a story on the proposal for a new set of stoplights on West Wheelock Street at Thayer Drive (see also the Valley News).

We learn from the college news story that the Thayer School building “will be connected at ground level to the MacLean Engineering Sciences Center and Cummings Hall.” Presumably “at ground level” means aboveground as opposed to belowground, where the garage is. Because renderings show only a second-level bridge connecting the new building to MacLean; pedestrians will go under the bridge to follow the “Green to Blue” route. See this rendering reproduced from the latest Dartmouth Life print publication (showing the existing brick wall of MacLean in white on the right):

image of Thayer School addition from Dartmouth Life

Incidentally, the college’s project manager for the Beyer Blinder Belle West End Master Plan was planner Douwe Wieberdink; he’s now with BBB. And the landscape architects for the West End work are Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates: perhaps one can feel a bit better about the fate of historic Tuck Drive following its partial demolition.

Irving Institute has a new designer

Posted on 07.09.2018 by Regisseur

The project page for the Irving Institute now states that the firm of Goody Clancy is designing the building. Goody Clancy designed Tuck’s Whittemore Hall. The Irving Institute building will stand in front of the Murdough Center and respond to Baker Tower at the other end of Tuck Mall.

What happened to the Irving Institute? The architects are off the project.

Posted on 23.06.2018 by Regisseur

In November of 2016, KPMB Architects of Toronto were announced as designers of the new Irving Institute building at a crucial site at the west end of Tuck Mall. The college’s project page stated that schematic design would begin during November of 2016 and that construction would begin in June of 2018.

During the summer and fall of 2017, KPMB architect John Peterson was “currently working on the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society at Dartmouth College” (Wayback archived page).

At some point, contractor Transsolar stated on its “in progress” page that the building’s completion date was 2020 and that Le Messurier would be the structural engineer, vanZelm the HVAC contractor, and Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates the landscape architect (the firm handled the landscape angle of the BBB master plan).

A year into the project, KPMB showed its latest design to the Board of Trustees. The Office of Communications stated on November 5, 2017, that “The board heard an update from KPMB Architects, designers of the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society building. […] Board members approved funding $6.5 million to complete the design phase, with a specific focus on modifications to the building’s exterior.”

One might speculate that “modifications to the building’s exterior” is code for “more Neo-Georgian, less Modernist” or “more masonry, less glass.” The Irving Institute will both screen the view of the Murdough Center from Tuck Mall and provide, for the first time on this site, a sympathetic response to Baker Tower.

Then something happened. There is no news on the Institute’s news page.

Architect Peterson is listed as “currently working on” facade improvements for Robertson Hall at Princeton University. The Irving Institute page lists no architect at all for the building and says that the project is still in the schematic design phase, with the construction schedule to be determined.

Details on the new road to the Thayer & CS building

Posted on 31.03.2018 by Regisseur

The BBB West End Master Plan (super image from BBB site; see also the Campus Services project page, written by BBB) turns out to be more than a schematic design. The meandering suburban business-park road is going to be built:

Another change will be the removal of Engineering Drive, which runs from West Wheelock Street to the Cummings lot. A new roadway, called West Access Road, will be constructed to provide access to the parking garage and Thayer loading facility as well as limited access to the West End Circle. A now-closed portion of Old Tuck Drive, which originates just above the swim docks and the Ledyard parking lot, will be reopened and will connect the roadway to Tuck Mall, pending town approval.¹1. Susan J. Boutwell, “Integrating Engineering, Computer Science, Entrepreneurship,” Dartmouth News (28 March 2018).

The project page for the Thayer/CS building provides more detail: “Engineering Drive will close, and a new access road will be constructed specifically to provide access to the parking garage and Thayer loading docks. Old Tuck Drive will be restored and reopened to support one-way traffic heading from west to east.”

Maybe the site conditions (steep slopes, existing buildings) require the endearingly-named West Access Road to look the way it does. After all, Tuck Drive²2. Please, let’s stop calling it Old Tuck Drive. The word “Old” seems to have been added to the name of Tuck Drive to distinguish the short branch of the road that was eliminated by Fahey-McLane. That was a dozen years ago. There is no need to keep using the word. is a curving, naturalistic auto road. Yet one hopes that the new road will respect urban principles by reinforcing campus spaces.

One also hopes that the West Access Road will be reconnected to Tuck Mall once construction of the building is completed: that would seem to be the reason for the two-level pedestrian bridge that will join the building to the McLean ESC.

From the Dartmouth News article: “Construction is expected to start early next year on a three-level underground parking and loading facility, which will sit below the four-floor education portion of the building.” In the map that accompanies the article, the entrance to that ~~subterranean lair~~ underground garage appears just off the southwest corner of the new building. Last fall, the project page included a view of the building’s south facade from which is taken this detail showing the intriguing, grottolike entrance:

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References
↑1	1. Susan J. Boutwell, “Integrating Engineering, Computer Science, Entrepreneurship,” Dartmouth News (28 March 2018).
↑2	2. Please, let’s stop calling it Old Tuck Drive. The word “Old” seems to have been added to the name of Tuck Drive to distinguish the short branch of the road that was eliminated by Fahey-McLane. That was a dozen years ago. There is no need to keep using the word.

New images of Thayer/CS building

Posted on 14.01.2018 by Regisseur

Rob Wolfe, “Other College Initiatives Under Examination,” Valley News (3 December 2017):

Mills also said at the meeting that officials were looking into establishing a public-private partnership to build a new biomass power plant, “essentially funding (the plant) without using our capital.”
Dartmouth’s 119-year-old power plant in the center of town currently burns No. 6 fuel oil, which is incompatible with college plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2025, and 80 percent by 2050.
Officials have said that a new biomass plant would not fit in the footprint of the current fuel oil plant off East Wheelock Street, but where that facility would go — assuming it’s ever commissioned — is still up in the air.
From the same article:

Public-private partnerships also may allow the school to build new graduate student housing, Mills said at the meeting. Graduate students living in college-owned apartments off North Park Street recently were displaced by an unusually large undergraduate first-year class, he noted, and this could help alleviate an existing space crunch.
Excellent photos and a thorough article on the new Ravine Lodge: Jim Collins, “Welcome to the Woods,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (January-February 2018).
A Valley News article on the College Park/Shattuck petition.
A college news release of November 5, 2017:

The board heard an update from KPMB Architects, designers of the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society building. The College intends for the building to be a hub of collaboration for students and faculty as Dartmouth works to produce the next generation of human-centered energy experts. Board members approved funding $6.5 million to complete the design phase, with a specific focus on modifications to the building’s exterior. The funding comes from gifts and capital renewal reserves.
Other capital projects were discussed, including ongoing renovations to Dana Hall and the Hood Museum of Art, site investigation work for additional undergraduate student housing, and preliminary design proposals for an enhanced rowing training facility.
New images of the Thayer School/Computer Science Building are out. These add detail to the images already released. It is hard to tell without a plan, but the Busytown sectional view seems to be looking west through a north-south slice?
The Valley News reports on a big new downtown addition to the rear of the Bridgman Building, designed by UK Architects.
A conceptual site plan of Kendal’s suburban 40-apartment expansion on the Rivercrest property.

Sports Pav expanded; other news

Posted on 03.12.2017 by Regisseur

The Valley News reports that the Polka Dot Diner building might soon be placed on the list of structures that contribute to the WRJ Historic District.
North Branch Construction completed a heating system conversion in Bartlett Hall.
Bill Platt, in “Archaeology Students Probe Dartmouth’s Underground History,” Dartmouth News (27 November 2017), writes about the activities of a landscape archeology class. Fantastic.
There are solar panels on the roof of the Berry Sports Center (Dartmouth News).
Peak (2 October 2017) has a photo of the expansion of the athletic pavilion out by Burnham Field.
There is controversy about what to do with the unauthorized climbing bolts at Holt’s Ledge (Valley News).
The Valley News reports that a developer proposes to erect a six-story apartment building behind Jens Larson’s former Lebanon Junior High building.
The new pavilion at the Organic Farm, by TimberHomes LLC, is quite a work. Is this one of the most authentically medieval buildings in Hanover?
The college has posted a video about designing the new Ravine Lodge.
A comment on the form and siting of the Irving Institute suggested by the high-resolution version of the one master plan image published by Beyer Blinder Belle: At least in this schematic form, the Institute fills in the hole in front of Murdough, the territory that has been ceded to a Modernist plaza for the last 45 years. Maybe the college will finally answer Baker Tower appropriately. End Tuck Mall Now!
There are often interesting photos at the Construction Updates page, by Campus Services.
NYPL has a geographically-based New York City map browser that lets you examine maps of any site through the decades.
Dartmouth News has a piece on Sanborn Tea.

A tree tour of campus

Posted on 02.10.2017 by Regisseur

Dartmouth News writes on the Gilman demolition and Dana renovation.

Dana Library entrance
The bench at Lebanon and Crosby is a puzzling object; it was being examined by two people when the Bing StreetSide View car drove by.
The Valley News:

Trustees also reviewed designs for a building to house the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society, a new interdisciplinary initiative launched with an $80 million gift from the family behind Irving Oil.

Lawrence declined to share the designs publicly, saying they were “highly preliminary.”

Administrators in regulatory filings earlier this year discussed building a $73 million structure at the end of Tuck Mall, on the west end of campus.¹ Rob Wolfe, “Dartmouth Readies Fundraising Push,” Valley News (19 September 2017).
Dartmouth News has a neat film on the Campus Arborist with footage taken by a drone flying up into the canopies of some of the grand trees on campus. There is a link to an interactive map of notable campus trees.
The monthly Enterprise magazine, a Valley News publication, has articles on the Trumbull-Nelson centennial and the Hanover Improvement Society.
One thing that a reader might want to learn after reading Alan Burdick’s interesting New Yorker article on watermelon snow is how watermelon snow actually tastes. It tastes like watermelon.
The county court has upheld the town’s rejection of the college’s proposal for an indoor practice facility or fieldhouse in the Sunken Garden (Valley News).
The new Moosilauke Ravine Lodge is opening October 14.

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References
↑1	Rob Wolfe, “Dartmouth Readies Fundraising Push,” Valley News (19 September 2017).

A statue of Fred Harris? And other tidbits

Posted on 11.02.2017 by Regisseur

Sasaki Associates now has a page for its House Centers “pilot” program. This SCUP article has a “housing swarm” image that Sasaki created for Dartmouth. A Valley News article states that the college “estimated it will cost $12.8 million to build professors’ residences and temporary centers for Dartmouth’s Undergraduate House Communities program.” But those have already been built. Presumably that estimate refers to completed construction. Any future, permanent versions of those buildings will cost a lot more than $13 million.
BBB has updated its page on the campus master plan to include a large version of that plan, an image of the West End plan (Green to Blue), and — this is new — a schematic perspective rendering of the cemetery bridge, which we can call Fletcher Viaduct.
This Valley News article notes Kendal’s interest in building to the south on Rivercrest land and leaving the Chieftain land for recreation (rowing).
Sir John Soane’s Museum in London has a computer model of the museum on line.
The architects have completed a design for the Irving Institute (Valley News).
The Dartmouth has an article on the success of the Town fence in front of Collis in reducing jaywalking.
The Hood has a brochure on public art on campus. The Class of 1965 has proposed to erect a statue of DOC founder Fred Harris in front of Robinson Hall. The campus architecture committee is considering the idea, according to the ’65 newsletter.
A bit of biography on David Hooke, who’s at the center of the new Moosilauke Ravine Lodge.
Dartmouth will play Brown at football in Fenway Park on November 10, Big Green Alert reports. Wild.
The Rauner Library Blog has a post about the Charter.
Kresge Library in Fairchild has turned 40 years old.
This Times editorial contains footnotes. Kinda neat, but also showy: if footnotes are needed here, why not everywhere? Or if the paper is to be relied on generally, why include notes here?
Big Green Alert points out the new use of the Lone Pine logo by the Co-Op. First impression? The trad typeface clashes with the fat Modernism of the pine. The use of the athletics nickname BIG GREEN in this seal-like, college-wide institutional device is also weird.
A Proliferation of Canes. Photos of the most recent Commencement show students carrying many strange, new-ish canes, most presumably representing senior societies. They feature a snake wrapped around a Native American arrow; a bearded old man; the domed main body of Shattuck Observatory (clever!); a snake clutching an apple in its mouth; a huge phoenix (for Phoenix, obviously — is that cast resin or something?); a tail, perhaps belonging to a whale?; and a three-dimensional stylization of the stylized Lone Pine symbol (also a metal globe).
Two interesting new-ish concepts: literary geography and forensic architecture.

Dartmo.

The Buildings of Dartmouth College

Category Archives: Irving Institute