Hitchcock Hall has reopened after an extensive renovation by Atkin Olshin Schade. The east-west hallway no longer has a plan shaped like a milk bottle. The Dartmouth explains the changes.
Hitchcock opens after renovation
Reply
Category Archives: preservation
College buys two Larson houses for campus groups
Dartmouth’s design office updated its complete list of projects in December (pdf). Renovations of New Hampshire Hall and the Inn are in the works, along with the creation or upgrading of a multipurpose sports field.
Dartmouth has also bought and is renovating the neighboring houses at 25 and 27 South Park Street and plans to rent each one to a sorority. Alpha Xi Delta will move from Webster Avenue, where it has rented the Beta Theta Pi House, and Alpha Phi will occupy a house for the first time, The Dartmouth reports. Both have been identified as designs of Jens Larson.
This is the front (west) facade of number 25.
This is number 27. To the right at number 29 is Fire & Skoal, also a Larson design.
The houses screen Thompson Arena.
Will South Fairbanks survive?
Thayer currently seats 700, according to The Dartmouth. The news release of November 10 regarding the Trustees’ meeting stated that the replacement for Thayer Dining Hall “will have seating for 750 diners and a large performance space.”
Unless the new dining hall does more than Thayer did to create a usable basement or second level or expands significantly into the parking lot behind the building, it seems likely that South Fairbanks (at least) will have to be moved. One assumes it will be moved rather than demolished, since the architects are “green” and would not consign a useful structure to the landfill for merely aesthetic reasons, especially when it is a historic building.
Here’s hoping that the century-old fraternity house designed by Charles Rich is moved to Mass Row (between North Mass and Hitchcock) or is permitted to become part of the new dining hall. Neither approach should be out of reach for a skilled designer.
Dartmouth Hall’s shutters
Some time ago a photo of Dartmouth Hall without shutters was posted here; it turns out that the school was putting up shutters made of composite materials produced by Atlantic Shutters. Atlantic mentions also redoing the shutters for Alpha Delta and three other houses.
—–
[Update 11.17.2012: Broken links removed.]
Hanover Country Club logo changes
The Hanover Country Club no longer uses its ski jump logo, and it seems to have adopted the pine from Dartmouth’s Bicentennial flag, as the Club’s home page indicates.
The jump was demolished in 1993, and there is a plaque on its site.
—–
[Update 01.05.2013: Broken link to flag replaced; broken link to plaque image removed.]
“Whittemore Green” as a name
As the irregular grassy plot in front of the River Cluster becomes better defined and and is transformed into a front door to the Tuck School (through the school’s Whittemore Hall), the space needs a name.
Landscape architects Saucier & Flynn have mentioned “Whittemore Green” in town planning meetings (pdf).
—–
[Update 11.17.2012: Broken link to 11 July 2006 minutes removed.]
Gates House details to be salvaged
It turns out the historic Gates House is gone, although some of its elements will be applied to a recreation near its site, designed by U.K. Architects.
The article in The Dartmouth on South Block progress points out that only parts of the building will be saved.
The bakery that will move into the building, Umpleby’s, is blogging about the construction and has posted photographs of the empty building site and the rear of the original house before dismantling; the ground-level framing of the replacement; the framing of the walls to the roofline; the completion of the basic form (it really follows the form of the original); and the completed building covered in Tyvek.
—–
[Update 11.13.2012: Five broken link to Umpleby’s blog removed.]
Sigma Nu addition begun
The latest of the many societies to graft an addition onto its house to comply with various life-safety and accessibility codes is Sigma Nu, which has posted photographs of the construction of an external brick stair tower behind the north end of its Larson building. The plans and drawings by Haynes & Garthwaite (pdf) are posted.
—–
[Update 03.31.2013: Broken links to photos and pdf removed.]
Minary Conference Center information
The most obscure Dartmouth property in the region might be the Minary Conference Center on Squam Lake in Holderness, N.H. It is very unusual because it does not seem to lend itself to use by students.
—–
[Update 11.12.2012: Broken link to Minary replaced with link to Lochland Lodge.]
Hanover High renovated
The Hanover High complex, including the adjacent middle school, has reopened after a major Banwell renovation. The mechanical contractor has images (High School, more) and the Valley News has a story. The town improved the high school as an alternative to swapping the building with Dartmouth and building a new school north of town.
—–
[Update 11.12.2012: Broken link to news article removed, broken link to Banwell site replaced.]
Photo updates for construction projects
The OPDC has posted photos of the progress on the new Varsity House (one of the photos shows Memorial Field in the context of the campus), the Montgomery House renovation (check the pondside facade), and the Soccer Field (with the turf in place and grandstand going in).
Most notable are the photos of the landscaping between Berry and Maynard Street, or Berry Row. See the substantial walkway that organizes the whole project, for example.
The campus enters Google Earth
Google held a contest to encourage students to help populate its rendition of the Earth with three-dimensional building models. Dartmouth’s team was one of the winners (The Dartmouth; news release) and the models have since been placed on the globe for all to see.
The news release explains Dartmouth’s extra attention to history and suggests an eventual grand global GIS:
The Dartmouth team went a step beyond the contest’s expectations to create three separate timelines, 1800, 1900 and 2007, to illustrate how the campus has grown and changed. With input from the Office of Planning, Design & Construction, accompanying material for each building explains when it was built, what it’s used for, who the architect was, and when it was renovated.
Second Life already contains a superb downtown Hanover; someone must be thinking about putting it into Google Earth.
Organic Farm remaking old CRREL greenhouse
A news release explains the elaborate remaking of a 1960s Lord & Burnham greenhouse donated by the Cold Regions lab next door.
Campus architecture database
The Historic Campus Architecture Project of the Council of Independent Colleges includes an excellent database with information on:
- society halls, such as the fabulous 1850s gothic Diagnothian and Goethean Halls at Franklin & Marshall;
- the better-known Eumenean and Philanthropic at Davidson (with Princeton’s Whig and Clio in this category if Princeton were in the CIC);
- the cold war bunker now used by Amherst as a book depository;
- Middlebury’s Snow Bowl, which combines in one place the functions that emerged at the same times at Dartmouth, such as the late-1930s base lodge (Moosilauke) and the late-1950s ski area with lodge (the Skiway);
- Sewanee’s campus, which lies within its Domain of 10,000 acres and is a bit like putting Dartmouth’s campus in the Grant; and
- Hastings College, which has a casting of Lundeen’s seated Frost, as Dartmouth does.
Shower Towers almost gone
The OPDC continues its photo essay on the Bradley/Gerry demolition, and the buildings are almost completely gone.
—–
[Update 11.12.2012: Broken link to image fixed.]
Hitchcock Hall gutted, structure revealed
Amazing photos of the scoured interior of Hitchcock Hall have been posted to the OPDC site.
The builders only knew the first-floor plan when they put the foundation in during 1912, since the rest of the building had not been designed. One wonders whether any of the concrete piers are afterthoughts.
The Shower Towers are almost gone
The OPDC continues its generous photographic documentation of the Bradley/Gerry demolition: one view shows Kemeny with Berry in the background, as it was meant to be seen, although just a little bit of Bradley is still standing.
Kieran Timberlake to design Thayer Dining Hall replacement
The Philadelphia firm of Kieran Timberlake is designing Dartmouth’s new replacement for Thayer Dining Hall. Mr. Timberlake lectured at Dartmouth in 2004 (see also Penn bio; Penn Gazette article).
Rather than retain the frontispiece or conduct a sustainable rehab (as at Yale Law Dining Hall), the school will replace the building entirely between 2008 to 2010.
What will the replacement look like? It is sure to display Kieran Timberlake’s signature glass wall with the Mondrian mullions somewhere, as its dining hall at Middlebury does (another image; see also Levine Hall at Penn). This technique could be a great way to bring light into the north side of the new dining hall and give a view of the trees in the cemetery.
The front on Mass Row, in contast, is where one expects to see some of the solidity of the firm’s other Middlebury buildings (they look appealingly substantial in photos) — not the minimalist experimentation of the Marks Science Center in Brooklyn or Cook House at Cornell.
Although photos suggest that the firm’s best dining rooms are the historic ones it has renovated, the main dining room is likely to be an informal one.
—–
[Update 11.12.2012: Broken link to lecture mention removed.]