Memorial Field bits seen from the air

Posted on 02.11.2014 by Regisseur

The Valley News has a story on the upcoming demolition of the concrete terraces of the West Stands at Memorial Field.

The West Stands building was completed in 1923. (Its 19th-century frame predecessor was a big Shingle Style roofed grandstand. It faced the football field and a cinder track. Together the complex was called Alumni Oval.)

The current project has a fascinating history of its own that includes the casting of concrete structural elements in 2008 before the work was put on hold. From the article:

Dick Terk, vice president and project manager at Engelberth Construction, a company with offices in Colchester, Vt., and Keene, N.H., remembers getting a call about the west stands project’s halt in 2008. It came three days before work was to begin, and he’s been looking forward to getting back underway ever since.

Terk said his company poured about half of the needed concrete pieces back in 2008 and they’ve been sitting on an old airplane runway at Windsor’s Miller Construction Company.

And here they are, in Google Maps:

This Google Street View shows what appear to be the terrace risers laid on their sides.

Ceplikas said $6 million of precast concrete sections have since been stored locally, and that an incentive to get the ball rolling was that New Hampshire building codes are due to change next year.

“The state revises them every few years and the next time is in 2015,” Ceplikas said. “Each time they tweak something, there’s a risk that it will make the precast pieces obsolete.[“]

Go Go Panarchy; other news

Posted on 23.10.2014 by Regisseur

College Supplies, on Main Street, is closing (The Dartmouth, Valley News).
Panarchy is finally tackling fire-safety upgrades to its Greek Revival house (Valley News, The Dartmouth). The group has set up an Indiegogo campaign to raise money.
Construction inside 4 Currier has ended and the Innovation Center has opened (The Dartmouth, Dartmouth Now). Construction is also ending at Kappa Delta’s new house on Occom Ridge and at the Triangle House renovation project.
Valley Road in Hanover now has “suggestion lanes” for bicycle and foot traffic (The Dartmouth). Other noteworthy articles in The D cover the addition to the Food Co-Op and the Wilder Dam relicensing process.
At the September Trustees’ meeting, according to The Dartmouth,

Interim Dean of the College Inge-Lise Ameer and campus planning vice president Lisa Hogarty gave a presentation on residential life concepts, including the neighborhood system, which would assign students to a residential cluster from the beginning of their time at Dartmouth similar to a house system.

This new residential system is in “active planning,” Hanlon said. “It’s bold, it’s transformational and it’s also very complex.”
“The Board also approved the second-phase schematic design of the Hood Museum of Art project” (Dartmouth Now).
The rivening of the Tucker Foundation continues (The Dartmouth).
Watch some super aerial footage of the Dartmouth Night Bonfire (via Big Green Alert).
The Rauner Library Blog has a post on the Grid-Graph, the illuminated glass display board on which students reenacted away games for football fans in the west gym of Alumni Gym.
The Times has an interesting article on branding/visual identity/signage at Barnard College. The third photo shows a pair of carved limestone (?) cartouches on the front facade of the school’s main building. Designed by Charles Rich, the building somewhat foreshadowed the smaller Wilder Laboratory at Dartmouth, which substitutes oval windows for the cartouches.
The West Wheelock Charrette Report was presented to the Planning Board (minutes pdf). There were several comments about “cleaning up” the area.
Campus Planning & Facilities seems to have shifted its news output from its website to a newsletter called Behind the Green. From issue 1:3 (July 2014) (pdf) we learn that the old roof shingles of Webster Cottage have been replaced with shingles of Alaskan Yellow Cedar (a.k.a. Nootka Cypress), and that design is under way for landscape work carrying out elements of the Van Valkenburgh plan near Collis, Robinson, and the Gold Coast.

A master plan mystery

Posted on 05.09.2014 by Regisseur

The BBB/MVVA master plan has not been presented to the public, but one small illustration from it has been published on the Web. Reading much into this one image is difficult. The image emphasizes a system of green circulation armatures; although it depicts several new buildings, it does not distinguish them from existing buildings.

Nevertheless some fairly significant proposals for new construction can be discerned. One of the most intriguing involves Tuck Drive, which curves gently uphill from the left:

Detail from Beyer Blinder Belle master plan for Dartmouth

Tuck Drive is simply cut off in the image; it dead-ends behind Buchanan instead of emerging from Webster’s Vale to join with Tuck Mall. (Here is a recent Bing aerial of the site.) Perhaps the blocking of Tuck Drive would not be much of a change. The upper end was already bollarded by 2010, a change presumably made when Fahey and McLane were built.

Where does the master plan have this Tuck Mall driveway leading, then? It goes to a parking lot. The broad, curving sidewalk and new lawn behind Buchanan appear to be level, bridging over the Vale.

Whether it is a small surface lot or an underground garage, this would not be an all-school parking area; it would serve the Tuck School. Indeed the green bridge with its broad path appear to link Buchanan to the current President’s House and the two or three new buildings shown nearby. It looks as if the designers are reviving the idea that the President’s House, whose address is technically 1 Tuck Drive, be made a part of the Tuck School. If an appropriate replacement for the executive mansion could be found, it would make a lot of sense.

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[Update 04.16.2015: Typo in post title corrected.]

College Cleaners demo, other items

Posted on 03.09.2014 by Regisseur

Athletic Director Harry Sheehy interviewed in the Valley News:

If you talked to our previous coaching staff, we were injured because we had to practice outside, but I don’t buy it. I would love to have an indoor facility so you could practice indoors for an hour and outdoors for an hour. I’m not saying the cold doesn’t put a stress on the body; I’m just saying that somehow we’ve had some (men’s lacrosse) success before and without an indoor facility.

I don’t need one with a thousand bells and whistles. We need a functional space with an artificial surface. The problem is, it still costs you $20 million just to do that.
A Memorial Field bid package document (pdf) states that “[f]or the most part, with the exception of some small changes, this is the same project that was cancelled in 2008.”
Demolition of the College Cleaners building on Allen Street, where the cleaning business started more than 65 years ago, is going ahead. The building first appears on maps between 1912 and 1922, when it was used as a restaurant. The site will become a parking lot and, one hopes, eventually will be a site for a new commercial building. The Valley News article distinguishes Town-owned from privately-owned public parking; the sad examples of the lots at 2 or 6 West Wheelock, where proper businesses have belonged for decades, suggest that Town-owned lots suffer a certain inertia.
Yes, the TM symbol associated with the big green D on the new scoreboard is distracting. But is it also crass, or is it a necessity of college athletics and trademark law? It might be the former: None of the other Ivies feels the need to put such a big TM next to its logo on the league website.
A proposal: In order to reduce traffic on South Main Street and at the Inn Corner, the town should make South Main a one-way street and block through traffic other than buses:

The gray zones are areas newly freed up for parking. Some of the southern parking area could become a Town Square in front of the Municipal Building:
Google Street View says that this bench (Appalachian Trail? Memorial?) appeared at Lebanon and Crosby between 2009 and 2013:
Steve Smith has written Top 10 Natural Places to Visit in Hanover, New Hampshire: A Walking Guide (Valley News).
Football’s alternate uniforms were revealed on August 12 (Big Green Alert). BGA has a photo of “Stephen Dazzo modeling Dartmouth’s alternate gray pants and a helmet designed to fit the theme ‘Granite of New Hampshire.'”
There are some interesting details in the very detailed Wilder Dam relicensing preliminary application document of 2012 (pdf).
Another proposal: In order to save money, USPS should sell off its Main Street property and lease a cheaper and more efficient space downtown, perhaps in the Galleria or Hanover Park or even on Allen Street. (This might mean moving the postal sorting operation, with its tractor-trailers, to Route 120.) The college’s Real Estate Office or another developer could then rehabilitate all or part of the historic 1931 Post Office building as a commercial space and fill the vacant land around it with commercial or mixed-use construction. It seems so wasteful to maintain that truck parking lot in the middle of town, and the Post Office isn’t making the best use of its building, either.
The Valley News has stories on Lebanon’s sale of school buildings, one with interior photos of Larson’s former Junior High School and one with an exterior photo of the building.

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[Update 09.03.2014: Typo corrected, wording altered for clarity.]

In the archives of the Alumni Magazine

Posted on 01.09.2014 by Regisseur

Some fun things are to be found by rummaging indiscriminately in the new on-line archive:

Harrison’s first design for the Hop appeared in a remarkable illustrated article from 1957.¹”The Hopkins Center,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (May 1957), 17-21, 25. This is the boxy, pre-arcade version of the building. The Top of the Hop was to have a cylindrical glass-walled void running through its center, all the way from the roof to the theater lobby. This seems to have evolved into the modest Barrows Exhibition Rotunda at the building’s entrance.

Ray Nash wrote on the college seal in 1941.²Ray Nash, “Rediscovering the College Seal,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (December 1941), 17-20. Speaking of the seal, “Hanover’s best skylight… is found in Parkhurst Hall” according to a “best-of” list written in 1984.³”Hanover’s Bests,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (December 1984), 42. The skylight, which depicted the seal, was removed during a interior renovation and seemed to have been lost by May of 2006. Was it ever returned?

An article on the Rockefeller Center included architectural commentary by designer Lo-Yi Chan.⁴Donald McNemar, “Rockefeller Center: The Ideal of Reflection and Action,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (June 1981), 30-33.

In the election of John Steel to the board of trustees, the alumni association counted its ballots on May 23, 1980. The board put off its vote of June 6, however, asking the association to investigate “any irregularities” in the campaign. On July 28 the association recommended action on the nomination, and the board elected Steel on August 16 — a delay of about ten weeks. He was seated at the board’s November meeting.⁵Editor, “The College. Steel Elected,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (September 1980), 26. Compare Todd Zywicki, “History of Trustee Election Rules,” Dartmouth Review (6 October 2006), 2 (“In 1980 a man named John Steel ran as a petition candidate for trustee and was elected in a landslide. Efforts were made by the College and the board at the time to refuse to seat him and after protracted litigation, he finally prevailed.”).

George Hathorn wrote a well-illustrated article on “Unbuilt Dartmouth” in 1978.⁶George Hathorn, “Unbuilt Dartmouth: Castles in the Clouds,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (May 1978), 29-33.

The master plan for Memorial Field appeared in a 1920 article.⁷James P. Richardson, “The Plans for Memorial Field,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (February 1920), 640-643.

Noel Perrin wrote an observant 1974 photographic study of Hanover-area sprawl.⁸Noel Perrin, “The College in the Suburb,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (May 1974), 18-23.

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References
↑1	”The Hopkins Center,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (May 1957), 17-21, 25.
↑2	Ray Nash, “Rediscovering the College Seal,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (December 1941), 17-20.
↑3	”Hanover’s Bests,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (December 1984), 42.
↑4	Donald McNemar, “Rockefeller Center: The Ideal of Reflection and Action,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (June 1981), 30-33.
↑5	Editor, “The College. Steel Elected,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (September 1980), 26. Compare Todd Zywicki, “History of Trustee Election Rules,” Dartmouth Review (6 October 2006), 2 (“In 1980 a man named John Steel ran as a petition candidate for trustee and was elected in a landslide. Efforts were made by the College and the board at the time to refuse to seat him and after protracted litigation, he finally prevailed.”).
↑6	George Hathorn, “Unbuilt Dartmouth: Castles in the Clouds,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (May 1978), 29-33.
↑7	James P. Richardson, “The Plans for Memorial Field,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (February 1920), 640-643.
↑8	Noel Perrin, “The College in the Suburb,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (May 1974), 18-23.

A black hole telescope; other news

Posted on 02.08.2014 by Regisseur

An earlier post here expressed concern about the plaque added to the Orozco Room after the National Historic Landmark listing. Dartmouth Digital Orozco depicts the plaque, a very dense text panel, on what it calls the “National Historic Landmark Pillar” near the center of the room. The other pillar is labeled “Manton Pillar” and bears the nice stone plaque created earlier.
CRREL site manager Larry Danyluk, paraphrased in the minutes of a Planning Board meeting:

Expansions planned include another wing of offices, a new cold room and, in partnership with the Smithsonian, a radio telescope for black hole research. The telescope will be installed for 2-3 years, then moved to Greenland. Ten to twelve people will be added to staff the telescope project.¹Planning Board, minutes of meeting (4 June 2014), pdf, 5.
The Dartmouth has an article on student-made graffiti, murals, and decorative painting in society buildings.
The renovation of Home 37 by ADD Inc. as the temporary location of Dana library gets a mention in Architect, the AIA magazine. ADD Inc. is the firm of Fred Kramer ’77 (DAM class notes).
Kresge Library is turning 40.
The Rauner Blog has a post on George Ticknor and the Ticknor Room.
The Times has a story on an interesting project at Brown, the recreation of part of a 19th-century natural history museum. Dartmouth also gave away much of its own collection, but a lot of it went to the Montshire Museum. One wonders whether enough dinosaur skeletons and mounted fauna remain there to supply a project in Wilson Hall like the one at Brown.
The Dew Construction Corp newsletter for June 2013 (pdf) mentions the Heater Road Medical Office Building and the Dana Library project.
The Class of 1974 Bunkhouse at Moosilauke (“the 74tress”), designed by MacLay Architects, has been completed, according to a post at TimberHomes LLC. The default construction mode at Moosilauke has shifted from log (or, in the case of the older bunkhouses, what seems to be conventional balloon framing) to substantial post-and-beam timber framing. If the Ravine Lodge ends up needing to be replaced, will its replacement even be a log building? What wonders could TimberHomes accomplish if it were given the once-in-a-lifetime project of erecting a Ravine Lodge to last 500 years?
A resident of the Lyme Road/Richmond School area, commenting at a recent neighborhood planning party:

There should be a bridge between I-91 and DHMC. That would divert a lot of through traffic away from our neighborhood.²Planning Board, minutes of meeting (4 June 2014), pdf, 2.
Will the architects of the West Stands replacement incorporate any quotations into the new concrete terraces or pediments? Whose woods these are I think I know.

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References
↑1	Planning Board, minutes of meeting (4 June 2014), pdf, 5.
↑2	Planning Board, minutes of meeting (4 June 2014), pdf, 2.

More notes about chapels and libraries

Posted on 27.07.2014 by Regisseur

Back in 2012 a post here proposed (1) the construction of an excellent nondenominational chapel primarily for the use of the few student religious groups that do not have their own worship spaces, and (2) the sensitive reuse of the underused Rollins Chapel as a library.

I. Since then, some remarkable examples of reused churches have turned up. The Times has an article on a 1928 Dutch chapel turned into a house. The big staircase structure placed in the nave seems to work — it makes the room livable and signals its difference from the rest of the building without dominating or appearing permanent.

Check out this astonishing church in Berlin (Bing aerial) that’s being reused as a museum (New York Times Magazine). Frankly, it seems as if it has looked like a museum or a factory all along.

II. Here are photos of two of the churches-into-libraries mentioned previously:

Library of Lincoln College, Oxford. Meacham photo.

All Saints Church, Oxford (18th century), now the library of Lincoln College.

Library of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. Meacham photo.

St. Peter-in-the-East, Oxford (12th century), now the library of St. Edmund Hall.

This is a recent (2008) conversion not mentioned earlier:

Archives of Balliol College, Oxford. Meacham photo.

St. Cross Church, Oxford (12th century and later), converted to an archives building for Balliol College. Services apparently still take place in the chancel (Wikipedia).

III. Would Edward Ashton Rollins have wanted his chapel to be reused as a library? Almost certainly not. He spoke at the laying of the cornerstone (Exercises at the Laying of the Corner-Stones… in Google Books), and he sounded as if he shared the views of most other New Englanders born in the 1820s:

Dartmouth College with no Chapel, and no religious worship or instruction, would mean ultimately the cities and villages of our state without churches, and our civilization a delusion and a mockery.

But of course the building of a new chapel would satisfy his first condition, and the Tucker Foundation continues to support the second. Rollins Chapel will always stand at the center of Dartmouth, whatever its function, and the proposal in the post would ensure that the college will always have an active chapel on campus. Events such as the Baccalaureate Service, whose concluding procession Corinne Arndt Girouard depicted in this wonderful photograph, will always have a dignified and dedicated building in which to take place:

Indeed the Tucker Foundation is undergoing changes of its own, being split by the college trustees into a religious group and a public-service group (The Dartmouth). In the long term, especially as smaller faith groups continue to obtain their own worship spaces, it is difficult to see how the split in the foundation would lead to more religious use for Rollins rather than less, but who knows?

It is worth noting that the little overview of the upcoming master plan on the Beyer Blinder Belle site states that “strategies include optimizing the reuse of existing buildings through space assessments.” And that the college’s architectural staff now includes a space planner.

Preservation and the Mobility Hub

Posted on 23.07.2014 by Regisseur

Dartmouth is somewhat notable because its buildings are completely absent from the National Register of Historic Places. The Sphinx Tomb, privately owned, is on the Register, and the college’s Orozco Murals are listed as a National Historic Landmark, but no college building or historic district appears on either list.¹No policy against listing seems to exist; the absence might result from a combination of inertia, suspicion of potential regulation, and cost concerns. Occasionally, proponents of listing also are surprised to learn that the school’s principal building, Dartmouth Hall, was completed in 1906.

Thus interesting things happen when a construction project with federal involvement triggers a review under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. The construction of the Ledyard Bridge prompted some research on the riverbank and West Wheelock Street, and the current Mobility Hub is going to change things right in the center of town, so it is undergoing a review as well.

Hartgen Archeological Associates is doing the Section 106 work for this project. The report of a meeting last November reveals an intriguing discussion about the Area of Potential Effect of the Mobility Hub:

The APE is generally described as including the plaza in front of Hopkins Center, the spaces internal to Hopkins Center and Hanover Inn overlooking the plaza, Dartmouth Green, the four streets around Dartmouth Green, and the “frontyards” of the buildings around Dartmouth Green.²New Hampshire Bureau of Environment, Conference Report of Monthly SHPO-FHWA-ACOE-NHDOT Cultural Resources Meeting (14 November 2013), pdf, 17.

L Black recommended looking at Dartmouth College as a potential Historic District with added emphasis on the APE. J Edelmann asked if the college had ever looked into such a thing and J Whitcomb stated that have not and that there isn’t real interest in doing so. J Whitcomb did state that the college has an inventory of buildings, but not to a National Register level of detail.³Report, 17.

Concerns were raised that a large scale look at the campus as a whole for Historic District consideration would be well beyond the budget of the project. A suggestion was made for the use of a “hybrid” form. After continued discussion it was generally agreed that the important elements to document are those that define the character of the APE. These include, but not necessarily limited to, building faÃ§ades, building architectural style, landscaping treatments, hardscape treatments, and other elements that contribute to the overall context of the APE.⁴Report, 18.

It is worth noting that the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards discourage the imitation of historical forms and styles in new construction, so the final bus shelter is not likely to look like it was designed by Wallace Harrison.

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References
↑1	No policy against listing seems to exist; the absence might result from a combination of inertia, suspicion of potential regulation, and cost concerns. Occasionally, proponents of listing also are surprised to learn that the school’s principal building, Dartmouth Hall, was completed in 1906.
↑2	New Hampshire Bureau of Environment, Conference Report of Monthly SHPO-FHWA-ACOE-NHDOT Cultural Resources Meeting (14 November 2013), pdf, 17.
↑3	Report, 17.
↑4	Report, 18.

Bus stop construction begins; other items

Posted on 21.07.2014 by Regisseur

The Innovation Center in 4 Currier has opened (Dartmouth Now). The design appears to be by Truex Cullins, who did the original building.
A little film introduces Perdido, the new sculpture on East Wheelock.
The Alumni Magazine has put up its electronic archive of every issue since the October 1905 Dartmouth Bi-Monthly, edited by E.M. Hopkins.
The post here on the topic of the new bus stop at the Hop complained about the sidewalk in front of the Inn. It turns out that that area is going to be reworked as well (Dartmouth Now). The sidewalk is growing, according to DCREO associate director of real estate Tim McNamara:

The planned changes to the sidewalk and surrounding areas will effectively create two lanes as well as smoothing out the frost-heaved sections of sidewalk.

“At present, pedestrians walking down East Wheelock have to pass under the porte-cochère,” says McNamara. “We will relocate the sidewalk to the outside of the porte-cochÃ¨re so that pedestrians will not conflict with cars and guests coming and going from the Inn.”

Moving the curb line out beyond the street’s current shoulder will also allow expansion of the Inn’s outdoor dining.
The Hopkins Center’s iconic Moore Theatre facade is also getting new double-pane windows (Dartmouth Now) ahead of the planned expansion and renovation. The D has a photo. (The Planner’s Blog has a post on the project)
Lebanon Junior High (J.F. Larson) is being renovated and reused, in part as the Spark Community Center. Studio Nexus is working on the building.
Project VetCare has purchased the 1907 house at 80 Lebanon Street and plans to rent rooms to three or more student veterans (Valley News). It’s the brown bungalow at the center of this Bing bird’s-eye view.
More great aerials: the Shower Towers and Kiewit, showing the committed but incongruous Bradley Plaza, and a 1919 photo of the Green showing the big tent set up for the 150th anniversary celebration. Most intriguing are this aerial and this aerial of Dartmouth Hall on fire in 1935. That was the fire that led Larson to gut the 1906 building and insert new floors and interiors, and to put up the current belfry and the three front gables showing the notable years.
One is relieved to see the College Usher (Dean of Libraries Jeffrey Horrell) identified as such in a Commencement photo showing him carrying Lord Dartmouth’s Cup.
A tidbit from the biography of the late David McLaughlin, Dartmouth President from 1981 to 1987. On the elimination of fraternities and sororities:

In hindsight, I am convinced that the wrong approach was taken. Having been in a unique position to restructure the fraternity system, I should¹David T. McLaughlin with Howard J. Coffin, Choices Made (Hanover, N.H.: Privately printed 2007), 135. have been more decisive early in my presidency, during my “Honeymoon” period. Perhaps I could and should have eliminated the fraternities in their current form and redefined them — brought about some positive fundamental restructuring of the campus social system. Neither my predecessor nor my successors had such a golden opportunity, both being non-Dartmouth alumni and academics and, therefore, suspect from the outset, by alumni and students, as men having little, if any, use for the Greek system. But football-playing, fraternity-member David McLaughlin was a different story. Oh, the howling would have been long and loud, and many on the board would undoubtedly have opposed me, but I believe that I could have brought a majority of my fellow trustees along with me. What I should have said, quite emphatically, in that inaugural speech of mine was, “Dartmouth needs to dismantle fraternities as they exist today.”²David T. McLaughlin with Howard J. Coffin, Choices Made (Hanover, N.H.: Privately printed 2007), 136.
The Hood now has put up a page on the expansion, with no new info since June 11.
Memorial Field construction is set to begin November 17 and finish by September 1 (Planning Board minutes pdf).

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[Update 07.29.2014: Link to Planner’s Blog post added.]

[Update 07.22.2014: Link to photo of Hop windows added.]

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 [+]

References
↑1	David T. McLaughlin with Howard J. Coffin, Choices Made (Hanover, N.H.: Privately printed 2007), 135.
↑2	David T. McLaughlin with Howard J. Coffin, Choices Made (Hanover, N.H.: Privately printed 2007), 136.

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.

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

The Hanover Mobility Hub is what it’s called

Posted on 05.07.2014 by Regisseur

The conceptual design by ORW, which won a design award from Vital Communities, shows a redesign and replacement of a group of features in front of the Hop: the pedestrian crossing, bus loading area, bus shelter, empty grass rectangle, etc. It will be a partly-federally funded Town project built on College land by an architect chosen by the College. Even though the original timeline aimed to finish the work in 2013 (Request for Qualifications pdf), it was not built then, but it looks like it was in design last fall (UVLSRPC minutes) and is out for bids now (Construction Data Company).

Everything in the proposal is sensitive and unobtrusive, but one should note that this project will affect the appearance of the Hopkins Center. (In fact this will be one piece in the great parade of architectural interventions in the south side of the Green of 2012 through 2020.) During the warmer months, a dense block of trees here would hide several parts of the Hop, setting up the Moore Theatre as an independent pavilion — not necessarily a bad thing, and perhaps a good stopgap until we receive a full and true Hop addition, one that brings the building right up to the street.¹If the Hopkins Center were less of a suburban arts island and more of a conventional urban building (see 7 Lebanon Street), there would be no need for a warming shelter here. The business end of the Hop — everything on this facade except for the theater entrance — would come right up to the street alongside the Inn, and it would provide plenty of commercial rental space for a newsstand or a coffee shop that catered to bus travelers.

Paving

The Site Plan Concept by ORW (pdf page 4) is impressive. The most noticeable change might be the grove of trees. With a pea-gravel floor, this outdoor room screened by two ranks of trees arranged formally on axis with Wilson’s entrance (and a realigned set of Hop plaza steps) will be novel and interesting and civilized. This allee could be exquisitely beautiful in the winter with snow on the bare limbs and the tables.

The street improvements (bulbs, insular pedestrian refuge near the site of the former grassy median) are all important. The crosswalk has a note indicating that it is aligned with an axial view of Baker Library. One proposal is pretty subtle: the use of plaza paving materials (concrete pavers, say) in place of asphalt in the bus/dropoff zone. This is crucially important in reducing the perceived width of the street: Hanover is not that big, and it doesn’t need a five-lane street below the Green. Here’s hoping the paving proposal is realized. (Even if not, the plan will still remove the diagonal parking in front of the hop — good riddance.)

Maybe after this is built and enjoyed for a few years the Town will go further by raising the street level and bollarding off the plaza and the Green. The same thing should be done with the Inn’s porte-cochere and its garage ramp.²At the moment these two asphalt drives are intrusions of the street into the sidewalk, not small portions of the sidewalk opened up to cars. The paving is opposite what it should be (Street View). In both cases, the sidewalk paving should extend all the way down to the street’s edge, and the boundary line should be located there. The existing bollards and floor level/lack of curbing are appropriate, however.

Pavilion

One neat detail is a bit hidden: a little visitor’s information pavilion. In the site plan on page 4 it’s obscured by trees but is described as measuring 12 x 15 feet. On page 5 its side is shown as if seen from Wilson Hall.³In the perspective view on page 6 the pavilion is a bit hard to read. It is the dark glass box whose roof is the same height as that of the seating area in the foreground. The tall glass box near the center appears to be a possible Hop addition. The document is from July of 2011.

I imagine this pavilion helpfully blocking the wind in the winter but spending most of its time enclosing a few desultory racks of brochures for Quechee Gorge and Simon Pearce. It could replace the staffed, temporary kiosk that the Chamber of Commerce puts on the Green each summer [check]. But it could be much more: you can see its potential in the photo in the lower right part of page 3, the one showing the café tables and the menu board.

This pavilion could be a little coffee kiosk, a snack bar, or even a real bar, serving drinks out of a window.⁴For that matter, couldn’t the Inn breach the eastern wall of its patio and start serving people who sit under the trees here? Not quite the Tavern on the Green or even the Out of Town News in Cambridge, but certainly at least as good as a sandwich kiosk in Bryant Park.

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References
↑1	If the Hopkins Center were less of a suburban arts island and more of a conventional urban building (see 7 Lebanon Street), there would be no need for a warming shelter here. The business end of the Hop — everything on this facade except for the theater entrance — would come right up to the street alongside the Inn, and it would provide plenty of commercial rental space for a newsstand or a coffee shop that catered to bus travelers.
↑2	At the moment these two asphalt drives are intrusions of the street into the sidewalk, not small portions of the sidewalk opened up to cars. The paving is opposite what it should be (Street View). In both cases, the sidewalk paving should extend all the way down to the street’s edge, and the boundary line should be located there. The existing bollards and floor level/lack of curbing are appropriate, however.
↑3	In the perspective view on page 6 the pavilion is a bit hard to read. It is the dark glass box whose roof is the same height as that of the seating area in the foreground. The tall glass box near the center appears to be a possible Hop addition. The document is from July of 2011.
↑4	For that matter, couldn’t the Inn breach the eastern wall of its patio and start serving people who sit under the trees here?

More thoughts on the Hood addition image

Posted on 24.06.2014 by Regisseur

1. Along with the new Minary entrance and perhaps a future Boora expansion of the Hop’s Faculty Lounge, the new entrance pavilion for the Hood will transform the south side of the Green into a row of Modernist glass facades (this Street View shows the current state of the street, with the insular Hop). Tod Williams said:

Charles Moore, who was Billie’s thesis advisor, did very fine work that was just right in the 1980s, but we really need to bring a fresh face to this. It is crucial that we create a visible destination that is woven into the heart of the campus[.]

The one image released so far (post) shows a lot of concrete walling in front of Wilson. Is it blocking off Wilson’s entrance, as the walls do at Steele and Wilder, or is it sheltering a ramp? (The firm does not seem ready to abandon Wilson: “We aim to restore its identity not only as a building with a remarkable exterior, but one where the interior is profoundly connected to its exterior.”)

The Valley News mentions that President Kim put the project on hold and that President Hanlon started it up again. The current design takes advantage of the absence of the Wilson Elm, which fell during September of 2013 (post).

2. The addition sure goes back a ways — it cannot help but swallow or more likely demolish Charles Moore’s layered, recessed gateway. This is unexpected. And it makes one wonder whether this addition occupies part of the Bedford Couryard, as The Dartmouth suggests.

The Hood’s original entrance ramp certainly will no longer be needed. That area might make a good building site. (In the small rendering, is that sculpture in the window Joel Schapiro’s Untitled, currently in the Bedford Courtyard?)

But the sequence of outdoor spaces experienced by anyone walking through the Bedford Courtyard is crucial to the character of the Hood, and unique at Dartmouth. One wonders whether so much demolition and infill are necessary. Have the imperatives that caused Moore to recess the museum rather than make it project it toward the street really changed?

Did Dartmouth choose this image for the press release because it doesn’t show very much?

3. Here is a theory: the deservedly-praised opening of the Maffei Courtyard south of the Hood (Burak image on Flickr) has created a new signature view for the museum that renders the preservation of the Hood’s current iconic gateway and courtyard unnecessary.

4. More on Moore from Tsien, in ArchDaily:

“I can’t remember him ever saying a single word about my work,” Tsien says. “But what I do remember are the crazy field trips he would lead. A single day might include the Neutra House on Catalina, a ride on the 360-degree roller coaster at Magic Mountain, the world’s largest miniature golf course, and a glass of wine at the Del Coronado. He was funny and shy and generous and he taught me that inspiration comes from many places. Making a wonderful place for people drove his work.”

Ravine Lodge upgrade study; other news

Posted on 25.05.2014 by Regisseur

It does seem a little strange that Dartmouth is replacing the roof over the Karl Michael Pool in Alumni Gym (see The Dartmouth) so soon after the 2006 renovation. It turns out that the roof insulation failed some time ago, and the college sued the renovation architects and builders back in 2012 (see the order on preliminary motions pdf; the Union Leader article). The suit is ongoing.

Charles Collis has died at age 99 (The Dartmouth).

Dartbeat has a Q&A with dlandstudio architect Susannah Drake ’87.

Two items from the Planner’s Blog: New chairs with built-in writing tablets to replace the old ones in Dartmouth Hall, and a new paint scheme for the pedestrian refuge in the middle of Wheelock Street by the Hop. On the Planning Board agenda for June are a request to modify site plans for a renovation of the porte-cochere area of the Inn and a review of the site plan “for vehicular, pedestrian & bus stop improvements” in front of the Hop.

The new (replacement) Class of ’65 Bunkhouse at Moosilauke is being designed by Maclay Architects (prospectus pdf). Timber will come from the college wood at Corinth Vt. (Grant newsletter pdf). The same firm is evaluating the state of the Ravine Lodge itself in anticipation of extensive future work (The Dartmouth).

The Hill Winds Know Their Name (pdf) is a beautifully-produced booklet by the late Professor Wood about the college’s war memorials. One suggestion for the next edition of this valuable work involves the transcription of the Stanley Hill inscription on page 13:

IT IS DEDICATED IN HIS NAME TO THE BRAVE AND CLEAN OF HIS BELOVED DARTMOUTH

It should read:

IT IS DEDICATED IN HIS NAME TO THE BRAVE AND CLEAN YOUNG MANHOOD OF HIS BELOVED DARTMOUTH

(See the shower room plaque; see also Kenneth C. Cramer, “Dick Hall and His Friends,” Dartmouth College Library Bulletin (April 1992).)

Interesting examples of public or urban typography from Tobias Frere-Jones.

A Google aerial shows the preparation for the sorority construction on Occom Ridge, and an earlier Street View captures the OnTarget guy marking utilities on the sidewalk.

Who knew there were so many new senior societies? The official ORL page lists a couple “new” ones that have survived (Abaris, Griffin/Gryphon) along with several even newer ones (Andromeda, Chimera, Olympus, Order of the Sirens).

The new Hop entrance under the Inn’s Grand Ballroom (Street View) was labeled “Minary Conference Center” when it was finished last year (see the image at the DUSA page). Perhaps it makes sense, since that is the most direct route to the conference center. One of these days someone will build a real, direct, and prominent entrance to the Hopkins Center proper.

Remember John Flude, the London pawnbroker who had a large medal engraved and sent to the president of Dartmouth in 1786? (See Dick Hoefnagel, “John Flude’s Medal,” Dartmouth College Library Bulletin (November 1991).) Here’s his testimony in the Old Bailey regarding one James Smith, indicted for stealing on July 10, 1764 a gold ring from Flude’s shop:

When he was gone, I opened the paper to look at my ring, and found I was deceived; I ran out, and happened to take the right way: I ran up Hart-street, and at the upper end I saw him; when I had been twenty or thirty yards in Monkwell-street, he run as hard as he could, and turned into Silver-street; I pursued him into the Castle and Faulcon yard: he stopped running, and was opening the paper to look at the ring: I got up to him, and laid hold of him, and said, my friend, you shall not drop the ring: I took hold of his hand, and led him to the first public house I came to, and desired Mr. Hayns, who was there, to open the prisoner’s hand; he did, and there I took out my ring: bringing him back in Monkwell-street, he desired I would not take hold of his coat to expose him, saying, he had a great family; I let go his coat: when we came to the corner of Hart-street, he endeavoured to escape, and ran as hard as he could; and we took him again in Wood-street.

Smith was found guilty of stealing.

A new master plan for CRREL

Posted on 23.05.2014 by Regisseur

This is impressive and fairly unexpected: an Oregon firm called The Urban Collaborative has helped design a master plan and building code for CRREL.

Here’s a recent aerial of the site from Google Maps:

Master planning started back in 2010 (see Public Works Digest pdf). The Army bought from Dartmouth the bulk of the land beneath its labs during 2012 (post).

The development next door to the north of CRREL is Rivercrest, which is owned by the college and has a thoughtful New Urbanist master plan of its own (post). Progress on that redevelopment has been halted for several years, and the plan lives only on paper.

Perhaps the two institutions can jointly reduce the suburbanity of the area by connecting each of their grids to the other. The CRREL plan even depicts, perhaps optimistically, a grand boulevard running west from Lyme Road toward the river, lined on one side with a new CRREL signature building and on the other with commercial blocks not previously shown in the Rivercrest plan. (Connections to Kendal to the north are probably too much to ask, however.)

Google Maps; other topics

Posted on 04.05.2014 by Regisseur

Google’s latest (July 2013) Street View of the SoWhee complex: interesting sky.

The British Pathe Archive has a 1935 newsreel called “Tricks on Skis” that shows some early extreme skiing (or “scheeing,” as the announcer says it) at Dartmouth. A film about the 1939 Carnival shows Dick Durrance winning the slalom.

The archive also has a fascinating pre-1920 silent film of an unidentified Maori rugby team performing a haka. All of Wikipedia’s examples of U.S. teams with a haka tradition involve gridiron football rather than rugby.
Post-VAC, the art studios in the Hop have been renamed the Hop Garage and Loew’s has been renamed the Hood Auditorium.
Oudens Ello has photos of the Collis renovation.
As part of Brown’s 250th anniversary celebration, Brown’s museum (in the amazing Doric Manning Hall) is presenting an exhibit titled “In Deo Speramus: The Symbols and Ceremonies of Brown University” through October 2015. The exhibit sounds worthy of being made a permanent one. Dartmouth should have a permanent one too — a permanent presentation of a history of the college and place where significant objects are kept. Part of the space can be devoted to the changing exhibits that now appear in the College History Room, which is really more of an Alcove.
Back in March the cover story in the DAM was a history of Dartmouth in fifty objects. The text notes that the College Usher, “usually the dean of libraries,” has carried Lord Dartmouth’s Cup at Commencement since 1983. That is an interesting (E.C. Lathem?) innovation, since the cup has been at the college since 1969; its use in the procession definitely removes any need for a mace. And let this post serve as a further encouragement of the revival of any other unfilled charter offices in time for 2019. The charter authorizes the trustees to “from time to time as occasion shall require elect constitute & appoint a TREASURER a CLERK an USHER & a Steward.”
By the way, the Alumni Magazine has announced that it’s going to have every issue on line soon, back to No. 1 in 1908.
Google Maps now let you see Street Views back in time (C|Net, Google Lat Long). In Hanover, the McLean ESC appears with and without the penthouse addition as you toggle between October 2010 and July 2013. Some places have three or four generations of imagery: at 8 Occom Ridge you can see a real turn-of-the-century Arts and Crafts house get replaced. On Webster Avenue you can see the original Sig Ep house, then the current house under construction, then the finished product. And let’s not forget Alpha Phi, replacing Larson’s faculty apartments.
Google Maps also lets you rotate aerial views now. The new perspective makes a place seem foreign: what’s this zig-zaggy campus tucked into a neighborhood of nice houses?
Much will change in the Sargent Block (Bing aerial), possibly starting during 2015. Naturally the Beyer Blinder Belle master plan (post) shows the block transformed.
Naming: NATO’s practice of assigning a reporting name to each type of Soviet aircraft (Bear, Foxbat) is familiar, but NATO also has named a U.S.-built aircraft, the P-63 Kingcobra. It was called Fred.
Archeology for fun: the unsold Atari cartridges for the E.T. video game have been found in a New Mexico landfill where they were dumped in 1983 (Kotaku.com, Wikipedia).
The Valley News story on the success of the equestrian team states that although the team once was the province

of the Dean of the College and the Dartmouth Outing Club, equestrian moved over to the college’s athletic department three years ago.

Dig the buttressing on the brick screening wall behind the Life Sciences Center.

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[Update 05.18.2014: I must have read this but forgotten the details. From Edward Connery Lathem’s 2009 memorial:

Mr. Lathem’s having in 1983 pointed out that Dartmouth’s royal charter of 1769 provides for inclusion among the institution’s officers of an usher, as well as a steward, caused the college’s board of trustees to reinstitute both of those long-dormant posts, and he from that point onward served as college usher, functioning as such within the ceremonial pagentry of annual convocation and commencement exercises.

I hope the steward’s present obscurity does not mean that the office goes unfilled.]

New surgical wing; other topics

Posted on 23.04.2014 by Regisseur

The college recently unveiled a plaque announcing the Orozco Frescoes’ status as a National Historic Landmark (Dartmouth Now). No images yet.
Dartmouth Engineer has a story on the new Center for Surgical Innovation. This addition to DHMC is one of the few parts of the complex not designed by SBRA (post).
A Kendal news release on master planning refers to the acquisition of the Chieftain. A future expansion of the retirement center could make a neat feature out of the Chieftain’s rowing dock.
The New York Times has a story on the planned demolition of the Folk Art Museum to make way for an expansion of MOMA next door. (The architects of the Folk Art Museum, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, are designing an expansion of Dartmouth’s Hood Museum that preserves and reuses Wilson Hall next door.)
Enjoy the retro poster (via Big Green Alert Daily) for round one of the Varsity Cup rugby tournament, held at the Rugby Clubhouse. Dartmouth won the match.
CurbedNY has a bit on the Guastavino family. The one grandly-scaled Guastavino-tiled space at Dartmouth, the surgical theatre at the old hospital, no longer exists, but the firm’s vault in the hospital’s one surviving wing remains on Rope Ferry Road. Also check out the entry vestibule of McNutt Hall, likely a Guastavino structure (post).
UPNE is listing a publication of a partner called Voice of the Åland Churches by Åsa Ringbom. How about that. Åland (Wikipedia) is an autonomous island province of Finland located in the Baltic partway to Sweden. It has its own stamps and a striking flag that reflect its largely Swedish ethnicity.
Dartmouth needs to name at least one building for the building’s architect. This is not an uncommon practice, although only one example comes to mind, the Norman Shaw Buildings at Parliament in London (Wikipedia; W&M’s main building was not designed by Christopher Wren). The designers who need recognition at Dartmouth are Charles A. Rich and Jens F. Larson. The bulk of the campus was created by these two College Architects in succession between about 1895 and 1939. The one building on which both architects did extensive work is the Heating Plant, which Rich built as a one-story building and Larson raised by one story. Maybe when the Heating Plant is taken over by the college museum, these artists can be credited and the building can be known as the Rich-Larson Wing of the Hood Museum of Art.
Brown started up its 250th anniversary celebration last month. Dartmouth’s ex-president Jim Yong Kim, a 1982 Brown graduate, gave a lecture at the Opening Celebration. The “Traditions” section of the 250th website explains that Brown chose the brown bear as its mascot in 1904 and in 1905 brought a live bear to a football game — the Dartmouth game — for the first time. Dartmouth won. (Brown doesn’t call the anniversary a “quartomillenium” or “sestercentenary” but a “semiquincentenary.”)
DUSA (Dartmouth Uniformed Service Alumni) has an informative page devoted to its symbols. As is traditional, the shield has the wavy lines representing the Connecticut River in the base. One wonders whether every organization, including the college, would benefit from depicting the River as a set of wavy bars thick enough to have their own colors, perhaps blue or even white (alternating with the green color of the field).
Interface: News and Information from Dartmouth Computing Services is back. One might recall the nice paper magazine iteration of Interface from the late 1990s.
The football team will wear an alternate helmet design at some point this fall, notes Tris Wykes in the Valley News. Perhaps influenced by trends in cars (Financial Times, Autoweek) or the Pro-Tec helmets worn by skateboarders or special operators, matte black seems to be gaining popularity in football. Examples are found at Cincinnati and Oregon; Missouri seems to have been an early proponent in 2009 with its Nike Pro Combat uniform (see Uniform Critics).

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Update 05.22.2014: Banwell architect Ingrid Nichols’s resume (pdf) states:

Banwell has joined forces with a national Kendal design architect, RLPS and together are completing a master plan for a new 20 acre abutting parcel they have recently purchased. We are also completing a master plan for their existing campus including: Additions for independent living, nursing, health center, fitness center (pool, locker rooms, exercise rooms and activity room).

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.]

Dartmo.

The Buildings of Dartmouth College

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