The college could close the Country Club

Posted on 02.09.2017 by Regisseur

The college is considering whether to shutter its historic Hanover Country Club.

Even if the college were to close the club, of course, it would never sell off the entire golf course. The golf course has been officially viewed as a “land bank” for future institutional development for at least 15 years (see the 2002 master plan pdf).

This website has proposed that if the south end of the golf course is to be developed, it should be built up with some density using “town” forms rather than as an extension of the grassy campus, irrespective of ownership (see posts of 2008 and 2012).

Whatever form it takes, the development of the south end of the golf course should not require the closure of the Country Club. The Club itself has planned since at least 2000 to move its clubhouse to Lyme Road, and one could imagine new holes being added to the east of the course, near the Rugby Clubhouse, or to the north, in the Fletcher Circle neighborhood, where residents have had concerns about groundwater contamination migrating from CRREL. If the college really needs the land near Dewey Field for more buildings, it should simply shift the golf course instead of destroying it.

Ledyard Canoe Club demo ahead

Posted on 21.11.2016 by Regisseur

A campus construction update has a few details on the soccer pavilion expansion out at Burnham Field.
The Valley News reports that the new Dartmouth Coach bus station is opening in Lebanon.
An architect has been named for the Ledyard Canoe Club replacement. The historic clubhouse will be demolished and a new building built in its place by Charney Architects of New Haven.
A newsletter last month described the installation of a solar array at ground level on Berry Row.
The Moosilauke Ravine Lodge replacement (project page) is going ahead, and one can’t help but worry about the success of its central feature, the great stone fireplace-staircase (HearthStair?). Will it be plausible as a work of masonry, a little bit of Machu Picchu in the White Mountains? Or will it read as Formstone, with no visible means of support?
An item on memorializing the Lodge mentions some interesting digital projects and quotes OPO Director Dan Nelson: “Memorabilia will be saved, safely stored, and reinstalled; interior log elements will be reused; timbers that can’t be reused in construction will be sawn into planks for wall paneling.”
“Work is underway … planning for future renovation of the Hopkins Center” (news release; see also the story in The D).
“Also in the future is consideration of the north end of campus, focusing on the demolition of Gilman Hall — and creation of green space in its place” (The D). Let’s hope that this is a way of saying the Gilman site will not become a parking lot.
“— coupled with the complete renovation of Dana Hall for faculty use” (The D). Interesting — wasn’t the library moved out because Dana was to be demolished? Is that move now looking like a mistake, or would the renovation have required the building to be emptied anyway? Whatever the case, it’s good to hear that Dana is being renovated. It seems like an underappreciated building that might have some merit to it, some endearing features. The small size and the scale of the building are appealing.
The Rauner Blog has a post on the Surveyor General of the His Majesty’s Woods during the 1740s. It is worth noting that John Wentworth later became Surveyor General, and Eleazar Wheelock was accused of illegally harvesting pines marked with the King’s broad arrow.
Dartmouth is building a timber-framed pavilion at the Organic Farm to shelter a wood-fired pizza oven (Planning Board minutes 6 September 2016 pdf).
Dartmouth Engineer Magazine has a long article on the Williamson Translational Research Building by The Map Thief author Michael Blanding.
The D has an article about the end of football game broadcasts on campus radio; this year the football team switched to 94.5 ESPN. Dartmouth licensed athletic multimedia rights to Learfield Sports late last year. Learfield created Big Green Sports Properties to handle “all corporate sponsorship endeavors for the Big Green, including venue signage, promotions, radio advertising and ads on DartmouthSports.com” (new general manager announcement).
Mad River Glen ski area in Vermont is the only ski area on the National Register (history, NR nomination form pdf).

New faculty houses, etc.

Posted on 11.08.2016 by Regisseur

Fascinating and unexpected historic New Hampshire mica mine for sale: Eagle Tribune.
Bora (formerly Boora) Architects have put up a couple new images and larger versions of their old ones for the Hopkins Center expansion. The new porte-cochere, which would tear down Harrison’s stone wall and put up a transparent box with a glass “curtain” wall, is striking for the literalism of its opening-up of the Hop. The new reference to the project as “unbuilt” is troubling.
The Valley News reports on a Cambodian food truck that serves Hanover.
Big Green Alert reports on the plaque honoring Kathy Slattery Phillips in the new press box at Memorial Field.
Dartmouth Now reports that the board of trustees, at its Commencement meeting,

affirmed plans to proceed with the renovation and expansion of the Hood Museum of Art. The trustees also voted to approve $10 million for construction of the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge and $22 million to build a new indoor athletics practice facility. Each of these projects will be funded through private gifts to Dartmouth.
One of the goals of the current Thayer School fundraising campaign (Dartmouth Now):

Construct a 180,000-square-foot building, which will nearly double the school’s total floor space. The building, to be located directly south of the MacLean Engineering Sciences Center, will provide more space for classroom teaching and experiential learning, with an emphasis on Thayer’s growing efforts in design and research priorities in energy technology and engineering-in-medicine.
The Town of Orford celebrated the 250th anniversary of its founding with a reading of its charter on the East Common (Here in Hanover).
The Rauner Library Blog reports on a time capsule from 1977 that contained a can of Miller High Life. The can was kept in the archives but had to be drained recently.
Thanks to the U.Va. School of Architecture for including the Campus Guide in its 2016 Alumni Exhibit, on university living-learning environments.
The Valley News has a story on the Hartford Christian Camp. It sounds like a lovely place, and the kind of summertime experience that was common a century ago. In Charlottesville, Virginia, a similar camp has been incorporated into the city and its surviving cottages have become year-round houses:
U.Va. has a collection of campus then/now photos.
The Dartmouth has an article on the school’s architecture studio.
Big Green Alert reports on the new FieldTurf at Memorial Field.
Volunteers in Meriden are digitizing the E.H. Baynes slide archive, the Valley News reports. Baynes was the conservationist and traveling lecturer who, at a talk in Webster Hall during the early 1900s, suggested that Dartmouth students raise money to save the bison and adopt the animal as their mascot.
Green Building Advisor has a detailed look at the construction of the four new modular houses being installed for faculty as part of the “house communities” plan. The school has a video update on the construction. Big Green Alert has earlier and later photos of the tensile “community” building that now stands by Davis Varsity House.
It is common these days for sportswear companies to design team uniforms, logos, and mascots. For the British team at the 2016 Olympics, Adidas worked with both the College of Arms (England) and the Lord Lyon King of Arms (Scotland) to create a coat of arms that would be conferred by a dual grant (College of Arms news).

Gilman entering decrepitude

Posted on 18.11.2015 by Regisseur

Although not yet a ruin, the shuttered Gilman was showing its lack of use by the time these photos were taken over the summer:

Residential College details released — two temporary “commons” to be built

Posted on 03.11.2015 by Regisseur

The college has released some information about the units that will make up the new House system (Dartmouth Now, Dartmouth Now details, The Dartmouth).

Every student will be assigned to a House randomly. (One wonders whether each House will eventually be able to choose some or all of its members.) Most new students, all of them House members, will start out living in first-year dorms: Richardson Hall, Wheeler Hall, the Fayers (North, Middle, and South Fayerweather Halls), the River (French and Judge Halls), and the Choates (Bissell, Cohen, Little, and Brown Halls). Upperclass students, all House members, will not be required to live in-House.

The House names are obviously temporary. Of the six Houses, one carries on its existing name (East Wheelock), while two are named for their locations relative to the other Houses (South and West Houses). The remaining three Houses are named, arbitrarily, for the streets on which their associated faculty residences happen to be located — just temporarily located, one hopes. For example, the Gold Coast is associated with a house being built in another part of town, on Allen Street, and so the cluster is called Allen House. The same goes for Mass Row (School Street = “School House”) and RipWoodSmith (North Park Street = “North Park House”).

These are the houses. The two temporary buildings are described in numbers 2 and 5.

West House. Dorms: Fahey, McLane, Butterfield, and Russell Sage Halls. Faculty Residence: A house being built at 16 Webster Avenue, west of the President’s House. “Community” space or “commons”: Presumably the existing common area in the “hinge” in Fahey/McLane. Professor: Ryan Hickox.

Comment: This Faculty Residence makes as much sense as any of the new Residences does.
Allen House. Dorms: Gold Coast (Gile, Streeter, and Lord Halls). Faculty Residence: A house being built at 12 Allen Street, next to Panarchy. “Community” space: A temporary (lasting five to ten years) “two-level building with a snack bar and outdoor area between Gile and Hitchcock” (The D). Professor: Jane Hill.

Comment: One hopes that eventually this House’s Professor lives in (a) Blunt, the perfect location, (b) a new house built behind the Gold Coast, where there are several great sites, or at worst (c) a new or existing house near the President’s House on Webster Avenue.
School House. Dorms: Hitchcock Hall and Mass Row (North, Middle, and South Massachusetts Halls). Faculty Residence: A house being built on School Street, next to the Allen House Faculty Residence. “Community” space: The temporary building behind Hitchcock, to be shared with Allen House. Professor: Craig Sutton.

Comment: This House’s Faculty Residence is about as distant as that of Allen House. Instead, South Fairbanks would make an ideal long-term Residence. North Fairbanks — or ’53 Commons, if it is ever not required to serve the whole college — would make an excellent “community” space.
East Wheelock House. Dorms: East Wheelock Cluster (Andres, Morton, Zimmerman, and McCulloch Halls, and possibly Ledyard Apartments). Faculty Residence: Frost House/The White House (existing). “Community” space: Brace Commons (existing). House Professor: Sergi Elizalde.

Comment: Some new students will also live here instead of in a dedicated first-year dormitory.
North Park House. Dorms: RipWoodSmith (Ripley, Woodward and Smith Halls). Faculty Residence: An existing house at 3 ½ North Park Street, across from Triangle. Community space: A temporary “tent” building occuping the pair of tennis courts northwest of Davis Varsity House. It “is planned to be a ‘sprung structure,’ which generally consists of a metal arch frame with an all-weather membrane over it” (The D). Professor: Ryan Calsbeek.

Comment: These buildings are south of the College Park and closer to two other streets than they are to North Park Street. Eventually, the college-owned Heorot house would make an ideal “community” space or Faculty Residence.
South House Dorms: Topliff and New Hampshire Halls and the Lodge. Faculty Residence: A new house at 5 Sanborn Street. “Community” space: The “tent” by Davis, shared with North Park House. Professor: Kathryn Lively.

Comment: There is a surprising amount of space west of Alumni Gym for future housing or community space, and Hallgarten would make an excellent kernel of a Faculty Residence. One hopes that the inclusion of a dorm (the Lodge) and a Faculty Residence south of Lebanon Street does not pull this grouping permanently in that direction; after the Lodge is demolished, it really must be replaced with a commercial building.

Finally, the McLaughlin Cluster (Berry, Bildner, Rauner, Byrne II, Goldstein, and Thomas Halls), while not a House, is getting a Faculty Residence (an existing house at 2 Clement Road) and a House Professor, Dennis Washburn. This group will house LLCs (Living-Learning Communities) as well as some new students who will live here instead of in a dedicated first-year dormitory. Each resident will be a nonresident member of a House located elsewhere. The Faculty Residence is relatively close, and there are good sites nearby for a future faculty house, so perhaps McL. will become a House in its own right.

The six Houses plus one. “Community” spaces are in purple, Faculty Residences are in red, and boundaries are exaggerated to indicate (short-term?) disjointedness. Based on Bing oblique aerial.

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[Update 11.04.2015: Map added.]

[Update 11.04.2015: The Dartmouth has a story today stating that the construction and renovation of the faculty houses will cost about $4 million. That amount must be coming out of the $11.75 million approved for the erection of the House system as a whole back in March (post). The two temporary “commons” will probably take up much of the rest of the budget.]

Neighborhood planning, other topics

Posted on 19.11.2014 by Regisseur

In 4 Currier, the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network Innovation Center and New Venture Incubator is operating (NHBR, via Dartmouth Now).
The extensive renovation has ended and Triangle House is now open (Dartmouth Now).
Amidon Jewelers is closing its store on Main Street, The Dartmouth notes. Amidon has been in town since 1935.
The College is looking at using natural gas or another fuel in the Heat Plant in place of No. 6 heating oil (The Dartmouth). It’s not clear that this move will lead to a new heating plant on Dewey Field, but there is always the possibility.
From Dartmouth Now, “neighborhoods” get a timeline:

The Board also discussed the ongoing planning and development of possible residential housing models that could be implemented beginning with the Class of 2019.
Dunc’s Mill, a Vermont rum distillery, displays on its building a rare matched set of Vermont windows (see the post here).
The Tucker Foundation is seeking comments on its split into religious and service groups (Dartmouth Now).
The Planner’s Blog has a post on induced demand for roads.
The Dartmouth has a general article on campus construction that says:

Gilman Hall, the now-closed former home of the biology department and proposed location for the academic center, will remain vacant for the foreseeable future, Hogarty said. Though the College investigated potential uses for the building over the summer, it did not decide on an immediate course of action. While housing was considered as one option, this would have been too expensive.

With Gilman on the road to weedy dereliction, somebody with FO&M needs to rescue those original lettered transom panels.
The Pine Park Association has a video of the construction of the new pedestrian bridge over Girl Brook.
Bruce at the Big Green Alert blog justifies his proposed name for the soon-to-be annual season-ending football game against Brown: The Tussle in the Woods.
There is some discussion of the Ravine Lodge demolition proposal at Views from the Top.
Waterfront New York: Images of the 1920s and ’30s is a new book of watercolor paintings by Aldren A. Watson, the Etna illustrator and writer who died in 2013 (Valley News, aldrenwatson.com). Watson might be familiar to readers from the trio of aerial sketches he did for The College on the Hill: A Dartmouth Chronicle (1965), precisely-delineated snapshots of Dartmouth in the 1770s, 1860s, and 1960s. The last of these is etched at a large scale on a glass partition in Six South.
There is a new football website (via Big Green Alert blog). In the Athletics > Ivy League section, the green “D” logo has mercifully shed its TM mark.

School of Grok

Posted on 18.10.2014 by Regisseur

The office of new Provost Carolyn Dever is launching two task forces, one of which is aimed at “evaluating the prospect of giving Dartmouth’s graduate and advanced studies programs a physical plant” (The Dartmouth of September 30; see also The Graduate Forum of October 3, The Dartmouth of October 7).

Dartmouth has operated a number of graduate programs for years. Most are attached to relevant undergraduate departments. Thus the creation of a freestanding school of graduate studies need not involve any expansion; it could be done as an administrative reorganization, and, in theory, it could even result in a streamlining of staff. Whether or not a grad studies building is a goal at the moment, however, a building seems likely. As far back as 2007 the unbuilt design (pdf page 9) for a freestanding Class of 1953 Commons included a Graduate Suite.

Maybe some part of the old hospital site is as good as any; maybe when Dana Library moves out of its temporary location in Home 57, that building could house the School of Graduate Studies. Maybe a new building for Dana could terminate the Berry Row axis and link the Medical School with the Graduate School, as the Murdough Center links Tuck and Thayer.

Of course all this growth became inevitable once the program/school adopted a coat of arms back in 2010.

Coat of arms for Graduate Studies at Dartmouth

Graduate Studies coat of arms, from Graduate Studies

Report from the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter

Posted on 14.07.2014 by Regisseur

Several posts here over the past few years have commented on the redevelopment of what’s called the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter in Oxford, comparing it to Hanover’s own hospital district north of Maynard.

Rafael Viñoly Architects devised a 2008 master plan for the area that appears in an aerial view before the makeover:

The Oxford University Press building is visible at the right, outside the quarter.
That church opposite the Press (St. Paul’s) was a coffee shop/bar called FREVD that served as an example here in the Rollins Chapel reuse post.
Just beyond the church is the future site of the building of the Blavatnik School of Government (founded 2010, Wikipedia). Circle-in-a-square buildings do have a special history here, but even a person with some fondness for spaceship buildings could find something to quibble with in this project by Herzog & de Meuron.

Blavatnik site, with St. Paul’s at left

View of construction site through hoarding

View of site from west: Templeton Green College, with Observatory

The broad approach taken by the university as developer is interesting: there was archeology beforehand (Neolithic ring ditches!) and during construction there was an artist in residence and a set of public art presentations.

—–

[Update 07.20.2014: View through hoarding added. Thanks to Hugin for panoramic image software.]

Museum-like displays; a Hanover designer

Posted on 19.04.2014 by Regisseur

The old idea of the trophy room for intercollegiate athletics seems to be shifting toward something closer to a museum, with text and graphics (reproductions of historic images, not originals) arranged to tell a story. Objects are displayed in support of the story rather than as the spoils of victory.

The Friends of Dartmouth Football Timeline, Video Archive Kiosk and Memorabilia Exhibit at Floren Varsity House is an example. Designed by the Hanover firm of Charles Gibson Design, the comprehensive display is the closest thing Dartmouth has to a permanent museum of any aspect of its own history. (I do not know what proportion of the old trophies are kept in Floren, in Davis Varsity House, or in the Oberlander Lounge in Alumni Gym.) Gibson also designed a timeline for hockey in two locations in Thompson Arena and a display recognizing donors John and Carla Manley.

During the Seventies and Eighties, Charles Gibson worked in the Hop’s Graphic Design Studio, and since then his firm has done a lot of work for the college and other area institutions. The firm revised the campus map (the next-to-latest iteration); created signage (including the mainframe-like kiosk that occupied the entrance of the old Kiewit); and paper plates and cups for the Courtyard Cafe in the Hop. The Nugget Theater’s freestanding marquee, influenced by the Classical porticos of Main Street, is another product. (By the way, doesn’t the little photo of the modest portico of the Hanover Post Office make that building look like a Great Work of Architecture?)

Most notably for our purposes, Charles Gibson Design did a Comprehensive Identity Program for Cardigan Mountain School, including a revision of the school’s seal that features a green shield containing a lone pine and open book. And if you are thinking about the “Dartmouth base,” the wavy lines of water in the base of the shield of each of Dartmouth’s schools, Gibson did a logo for the local school district in conjunction with the Banwell addition to Hanover High. For the country’s first interstate school district, drawing from both Hanover and Norwich, the circular logo presents the Ledyard Bridge above wavy water lines on a green field.

The Food Co-op builds again

Posted on 17.04.2014 by Regisseur

The Co-op Food Store is expanding and renovating its building on South Park Street with designs by Studio Nexus Architects, authors of the recent Co-op at the roundabout on Lyme Road. A floor plan in the new booklet explaining the renovation (pdf) shows that the addition will bump out the South Park Street facade along most of its length.

The Park Street building, which sort of serves as a gatepost at the southeastern entrance to Hanover, was built in 1962 to the designs of E.H. & M.K. Hunter, a firm also known for Bradley/Gerry. (Lisa Mausolf’s history of midcentury Modernist architecture in New Hampshire (pdf) mentions a few area buildings and includes several designs by the Hunters around the state.)

The Co-op’s awkward Sixties charm seems to have been renovated out of it during the Eighties and Nineties. A neat and unexpected series of massing models on page 8 of the booklet shows the building’s evolution: by putting a shed-roofed apparent second story over the new entrance, the proposed addition will hint at the original building’s high forehead, now encased in accretions.

BASIC at 50 and other items

Posted on 13.04.2014 by Regisseur

Work continues on the Williamson Translational Research Building at the hospital in Lebanon. Here is a notable tidbit about the building’s namesake donor, the late Dr. Peter Williamson ’58: he once owned the ultimate collector car, Lord Rothschild’s Bugatti Atlantic. Williamson’s car won the Pebble Beach Concours in 2003 and is now in the Mullin Automotive Museum.

The Rauner Blog post on E.E. Just has a great old photo of Hallgarten. The building was built for the state ag school, known then as N.H.C.A.M.A., and its rear ell is the only part of any building from the campus to survive. The school later moved to Durham and became U.N.H., as its football website points out (via Big Green Alert). Of course, the most meaningful fact that relates to the football rivalry is that Dartmouth’s Memorial Field, indeed the entirety of its athletic complex west of Park Street, was built on one of the state farm fields. The students of the N.H.C.A.M.A. learned how to raise crops in the place where Dartmouth students now play football.

A group called Project VetCare is buying a house in Hanover, apparently around 65-75 Lebanon Street, to provide housing for veterans, including students (The Dartmouth).

Dartmouth Medicine has had a redesign by Bates Creative.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if the U.S. had national food appellations (Wikipedia) beyond the grape-growing regions designated by the AVA? There simply is no equivalent to the geographical indications and traditional specialities of the EU (PDO, PGI, TSG), the AOC of France, or the DOC of Italy. Not all traditional foods are old — Birmingham Balti has been proposed for the list of U.K. foods given protected status, and farmed Scottish salmon is already listed.

Kendal has demolished the Chieftain (Valley News).

Crouching Spider is going away (Flickr).

Dartmouth has talked about changing the name of the overall institution — the umbrella under which the undergraduate college and the graduate and professional schools operate — from Dartmouth College to Dartmouth University. The purpose would be to raise the school’s standing among observers, mostly outside the West, for whom “college” can mean a secondary school or lower school. A fascinating example of this renaming motive is found in Trinity College Dublin, another school that has landed outside the top 125 in the Times World University Rankings. Trinity was founded in 1592 (Wikipedia) as a constituent college of the University of Dublin. What makes Trinity odd is that the University never added any other colleges — Trinity is all there is, and yet the university administration survives, under its own name. Trinity’s rebranding now proposes to replace “Trinity College Dublin” with “Trinity College, University of Dublin.” Oh well; at least the “improved” name seems historically-grounded and technically accurate. Brian M. Lucey argues against it in a blog post, and another post. The real controversy in the rebranding involves the coat of arms:

Although the Irish Times claims that the Bible is being removed from Trinity’s arms, that does not necessarily appear to be the case. According to an informative paper by Professor John Scattergood (pdf, via Brian M. Lucey), the arms, as formally granted in 1901, require “a Bible closed, clasps to the dexter.” The rebranding includes a new, stylized version of the coat of arms that substitutes an open book, something that easily could be called “a Bible open.” Visually, neither one of the shields identifies the book to the ordinary observer. The changes in colors are all part of the stylization and do no violence to the underlying historic coat of arms. (The University of Dublin obtained its own arms in 1862, and they contain an open book, incidentally.)

UNH has picked a new logo, a shield designed by Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv. This shield is not one of the three shields that the firm initially proposed last year (post). Although a couple of those first ideas were intriguing, students and alumni were not pleased. The new identity guide (pdf) notes that “The specific blue color has been made a bit brighter than the past version.”

Just for your information, the maximum number of effective footnotes in a Word document (Word:Mac 2008) is 32,768. Notes above that number fail gracefully: they still work but are numbered incorrectly, all sharing either the number 32768 or one of a few numbers after that.

The school’s Flickr feed has a nice set of historic photos titled “BASIC at 50: The Democratization of Computing.” It is especially gratifying to see the buildings identified: the College Hall basement, Kiewit, and so on. (In the lower right corner of another view of Kiewit is a glimpse of someone who could have been a predecessor of Usenet celebrity and campus character Ludwig Plutonium.)

This fantastic photo of President Kemeny with his BASIC license plate was taken in the parking lot east of Bradley/Gerry, it appears, and has the rear addition of the Church of Christ for a backdrop (somewhat near this present-day Google Street View).

From an article in The Dartmouth on planning VP Lisa Hogarty: “The biggest change in the College’s capital budget, she said, will come from the proposed expansion to the Thayer School of Engineering.” See the sample master plans of Koetter Kim (post) and Beyer Blinder Belle (post) and the Thayer press release on President Hanlon’s 2013 expansion announcement.

The news that a family had donated $100m to support Hanlon initiatives makes one think of the Harkness gifts to create “residential colleges” at Harvard and later Yale, but reading The Dartmouth, one learns:

Mastanduno said this gift represents a significant departure from past donations, which have tended to focus on capital infrastructure.

“This isn’t about bricks and mortar,” he said. “It’s about the core academic mission of Dartmouth.”

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[Update 04.17.2014: Broken link to Mullin removed, Kendal spelling corrected.]

Google updates its aerial, and other news

Posted on 11.11.2013 by Regisseur

Hello, what’s this? The newest Google aerial shows hundreds of chairs and the big Commencement stage set up on the Green. It looks as if the photo was taken just before the Convocation on September 20. It is definitely recent: the Wilson Hall elm is missing, the Crouching Spider is visible, the new scoreboard is casting a shadow on the south end of Memorial Field, the Williamson is under way, Alpha Phi is in place, and the clearing has started for Kappa Delta at the end of Webster Avenue.
The Planner’s Blog has a couple of photos of the start of the Triangle House renovation. The Trumbull-Nelson magazine has an article on the construction of Alpha Phi and a photo of the Kappa Delta foundation going in.
Remember the big six-level parking garage in Dewey Field?

Built in 1972 to hold 490 cars, the garage is visible in this 1995 photo behind Remsen/Vail. The college demolished it in 1996. A Bing aerial shows the current state of the site at the northwest corner of the Dewey Field parking lot, and a Google Street View shows the site from the ground (pan around to see the Google engineers giving the camera trike a sendoff).
It turns out that ADD, Inc., the firm that designed the interior renovations of Home 36 and Home 50, did more than create a new headquarters there for Dana Library. It also created offices there for DCHCDS; and it designed interiors at 4 Currier Place.
Some notes on education: A small article in Education Life in the Times covers an interesting project, the Minerva Schools. In this attempt to be a non-discount university at a discount price, the idea of renting space in a series of world cities is a neat one. (Also in the supplement is a wordy ad for MALS at Dartmouth (pdf) that seems undesigned — showing directness and honesty, one supposes.) A visit to a Virginia horse fair last weekend turned up booths representing the University of Findlay in Ohio and Centenary College in New Jersey. Interesting. Most of the other booths promoted saddles, animal feed, or pasture fencing.

From Kiewit to…

Posted on 11.04.2013 by Regisseur

Correct me in the comments if I’m wrong, but after Dartmouth demolished Kiewit, it gave Computing Services an office in Baker Library, outside the Tower Room:

In 2011, however, the college apparently gave that space to the undergraduate deans and shunted Computing Services to the first floor of Berry.

Now the deans have joined Computing Services in the first floor of Berry (The Dartmouth, see floorplan pdf), and the Computer Store has been displaced to the basement of McNutt (Dartbeat).

Who dares wins: graduate studies proposals

Posted on 07.04.2013 by Regisseur

One of the Strategic Planning reports suggests that Graduate Studies be given a lounge:

The lack of any identifiable social space on the Dartmouth campus is quite striking, in comparison to all our peer institutions who have endowed graduate student centers. The ideal location for this space would be near the center of campus so that it would be easily accessible and also a visible reminder of the presence on graduate students and research on the campus.

(Graduate Education for the Future Working Group Final Report (June 2012), 13.) This desire has surfaced previously in the inclusion of a graduate suite in the original proposal for a ’53 Commons north of Maynard Street (pdf).

Compare this idea proposed by a different working group (WG) focused on research, scholarship, and creativity (RSC):

To meet all these goals, our WG recommends that Dartmouth consider the formation of a new school, the first in over 100 years. The School of Advanced Studies (SAS) would be the first-in-the-nation school focused broadly on advancing RSC for faculty, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and undergraduates. Led by a new Dean reporting directly to the Provost, SAS’s remit would be to advance RSC at Dartmouth across all disciplines and all schools. It would invigorate the research environment at Dartmouth, spearhead better organized decisionmaking on RSC, help attract top talent to Dartmouth from all over the world, create more inclusive and enriching environment for graduate students and post-docs, and foster crossdisciplinary collaboration among faculty as well as undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students. We envision a new facility on central campus that would house SAS and its associated programs, as well as housing for visiting scholars and conference attendees, conference space, and common spaces.

(Research, Creativity and Scholarship Working Group Final Report (June 2012), 5.)

This sounds a bit like the famous Institute for Advanced Study, which occupies a Jens Larson building near Princeton University, but that organization is independent of its local university (see also Wikipedia).

More details on the Academic Center, Dana’s move

Posted on 11.08.2012 by Regisseur

The previous post on this topic mentioned that the current rendering (source) of the quad facade differs slightly from an earlier rendering published during May. Some of the changes:

The eastern (most distant) of the three masses has gone from light-colored stone cladding to something more uniform, possibly metal, and has gained a glazed projection or Window of Appearance. The mass also appears to have taken on a stepped form where it meets the rest of the building.
The central mass is still a glass box, but the detailing has changed. The third level seems to have been omitted or made into a mezzanine.
The nearer, western mass has changed from red brick to stone or concrete. The walls of the ground level are largely blank, suggesting that this part of the building will house Dana Library.

Where will Dana go between the demolition of its current building in 2013 and the completion of the new one in 2016? It will occupy Homes 37 and 50, former Nursing School buildings that are now known, as a result of two of the school’s better E-911 naming decisions, as 37 and 50 Dewey Field Road.

The Biomedical Libraries Blog has a plan of the library in its temporary home, with the layout designed by ADD Inc.

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[Update 03.31.2013: Broken link to library plan replaced.]

[Update 11.17.2012: Broken link to library blog fixed.]

[Update 08.19.2012: It looks as if the addresses of the buildings at 37 and 50 Dewey Field Road have been consolidated, and the building built in 1950 (i.e. Home 50) is now numbered 37 Dewey Field Road.]

The Academic Center is by Kyu Sung Woo Architects

Posted on 31.07.2012 by Regisseur

The designers behind the planned North Campus Academic Center are the Cambridge, Mass. firm of KSWA. Firm founder Kyu Sung Woo (Wikipedia) designed the Olympic Village for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul (firm page).

The firm’s campus work includes a pair of dorms on Coffin Street at Bowdoin (firm page) and the Nerman Museum in Kansas (Architectural Record, Biemiller post at the Buildings & Grounds blog of The Chronicle).

The project page for the North Campus Academic Center at Dartmouth provides a slightly modified version of the May view of the building’s rear or quad facade as well as a view to the southwest showing the “front” facade on College Street.

What’s most notable is the siting: this building has some major planning implications. The building is not an east-west bar as its predecessor Gilman was. Instead, it appears to follow a northeast-southwest orientation, forming an angled tee shape (a favored form — see the Nerman plan). The dominant main block will follow the angle of College Street as it heads off toward Lyme. The southern end of the building, the stem of the tee, appears to adopt the orientation of the McLaughlin Cluster.

Thus, instead of forming a rectilinear wall along the bottom of the medical quad as Gilman did, the building opens like a trap door, allowing the quad to spill out to the McLaughlin Cluster.

Some new details about the building’s contents and surroundings:

Classrooms, meeting rooms, a graduate student lounge and social space, a cafe, and a large scale forum will be available to the Dartmouth community. The building will be set in a landscape featuring outdoor performances, art events, and a gathering space for major events such as the Medical School commencement.

The Life Sciences Center also was described as framing a space for commencements. Thus the commencement space mentioned above seems likely to be the existing medical quad rather than the sunken lawn visible in the first illustration.

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[Update 08.11.2012: KSWA’s authorship of the Academic Center was mentioned as early as March 9 on a Korea.net article titled “Design by Korean architect dazzles in Boston.”]

Baker and Berry

Posted on 04.03.2012 by Regisseur

I. King Arthur Café.

Several weeks ago, this post was set to mention Norwich’s King Arthur Flour with a link to this Google blog post about the company. Since then, Google’s promotion of the article has become controversial. Let’s hope this ends up boosting business for King Arthur, which runs the café located off the catalogue room in Baker Library (King Arthur blog, The Dartmouth, Dartbeat).

II. Potential Baker alterations.

The Dartmouth reports that the Undergraduate Deans Office moved out of Parkhurst and into the library over the summer. The new offices appear to be temporary, with a large suite in Baker or elsewhere in the works:

These changes follow announcements made by College President Jim Yong Kim in May 2010 that the College would implement a new student advising structure beginning Fall 2011. The revamped advising structure would be modeled after a hospital triage system centralizing all relevant offices in one location where students could have their advising needs diagnosed, he said.

The deans are in Baker temporarily and will announce a new location in the spring (The Dartmouth).

III. The weathervane and the reference desk.

Ask Dartmouth has a post on Baker Tower’s weather vane. The big Berry reference desk recently was replaced with a new one of a different design (The Dartmouth).

IV. Comparing Baker and Berry.

VSBA designed major additions to two Larson buildings at Dartmouth. The first was the Thayer School addition, which was fairly popular and well-regarded when it opened. The Trustees praised it, probably thinking of the front part:

Thayer School addition, front (eastern) portion (Google Street View).

But the Thayer School addition also had a large rear component, a basic laboratory loft:

Thayer School addition, rear (western) portion (Google Street View).

The firm’s second major project was the Berry Library and Carson Hall addition to the Baker Library complex. Expected to carry over the classical pavilion from the front of the Thayer project, the firm instead replicated the loft from the rear:

Berry Library, front (north) facade (Google Street View).

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[Update 11.17.2012: Broken links to VSBA and Dartbeat fixed.]

The “North Block,” or one way to expand onto the golf course

Posted on 14.02.2012 by Regisseur

I. Background.

The hope is that if or when Dartmouth builds a new heat plant in Dewey Field, the prominent field north of the Life Sciences Center, it erects a building of high quality.

More important than the architecture, however, is the siting: the building should be located in such a way that it does not impede the construction of other buildings in the future. This is the second time this idea has been flogged here.

Dartmouth needs to decide upon the potential building sites for the whole area between the LSC and the 6th hole of the golf course. It should know ahead of time whether this will be a district of brown metal sheds, academic buildings, office spaces, or even general-market apartment buildings, and how these new buildings will be organized, even if the first one is not built until 2050.

Google Street Views of the overall parking lot (up from the bottom, down from the Medical School) show the tremendous amount of space available to future builders with incomplete ideas. The sort-of road that lines the western edge of the site will form a crucial axis, as is made apparent in the set of excellent views to the north from under the Kellogg bridge and to the south (uphill).

II. Proposal.

The idea of placing academic buildings or dormitories north of the LSC should be dismissed out of hand. This site is simply too far away from the center of campus. The fact that the LSC forms a great rampart walling off the outside world suggests that the college agrees: what lies beyond the pale is not a part of the campus.

But there will be buildings built here, and there are some functions that would be appropriate for the college to develop here.

Present zoning aside, this could be a great place for commercial rental buildings with integrated parking garages. The Development Office could be here. Look to Centerra; look to the space the college is renting in downtown Hanover at the moment. This site is no farther from the Green than is Ledyard Bridge, and walking distance is obviously of little importance to non-student functions. Retail and residential uses would be essential to add life to the district when it is finally built out, but they might be too much to hope for.

Sketch of possible “North Block” development on Dewey Field and golf course.

What about the golf course? Add a couple of holes to the north or east; build a new clubhouse at the north end of this commercial project, or in the Reservoir Road area as a companion to the Rugby Club.

[02.25.2012 update: first paragraph reworded slightly.]

Dartmo.

The Buildings of Dartmouth College

Category Archives: north campus