Category Archives: Fahey-McLane

About the dormitory planned for the north side of Tuck Mall, west of Butterfield Hall, on the Dartmouth College campus. The building (two buildings, actually) received the names of Fahey Hall and McLane Hall.

Details on the new road to the Thayer & CS building

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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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.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

map of houses

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.]

Thayer is becoming the Class of 53 Commons

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Hidden in a story about Fahey-McLane in The Dartmouth is this information:

As part of the renovations, the booths and platforms were removed from Homeplate, increasing the dining capacity of the space, according to students who had used the renovated facility.

[…]

Construction will continue until the estimated completion date in Fall 2011, according to a June update.

A later story has a photo of the new Homeplate. It’s hard to remember what it looked like with the risers in place.

[Update 10.19.2010: The Mirror has more details about what’s moving where.]

Small items of interest

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  • There is an unusual aerial view of the north end of campus in the Dartmouth Medicine magazine. It is a view from the north looking south, and it hints at the way Main Street used to cross the Green on a diagonal. The photo makes the Green’s northeast-southwest path appear to be an extension of College Street.
  • There are far to many changes in planning, development, and regulation of suburban sites in the Upper Valley to keep up with on line. Here is just one example: the Valley News reported on a new development proposed for the edge of Centerra.
  • Naturally Vermont has a Marble Museum (New Hampshire does not appear to have a Granite Museum…) and it is mentioned in a Rutland Herald story on the pervasive use of marble at Middlebury and other schools.
  • The completed addition to Spaulding Auditorium includes extra storage for the Band’s instruments, notes the construction management firm. Interesting.
  • The Valley News had a story on blazes marking the Appalachian Trail in downtown Hanover.
  • The Dartmouth reports that double rooms in Fahey and McLane will be converted to triples. It seems only a couple of year ago that Fahey and McLane were built to allow the rooms in other dorms to decompress from triples to doubles.

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[Update 01.13.2013: Broken link to construction management firm (Berry) removed.]

Some views of recent construction

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A remote tour of recent construction via Google Street View images made around August 4, 2009, judging from the Hop’s marquee:

  • The north end addition to Theta Delta Chi (view to southeast);
  • The east end addition to Gile and rear addition to Hitchcock (view to north showing Gile getting a new copper roof);
  • Fahey Hall (view with Butterfield);
  • The redone Tuck Drive/Tuck Mall intersection (view to north; the Google Maps aerial is older and shows Fahey-McLane under construction);
  • The stair addition to the west end of Bones Gate (view to south showing unobtrusive one-bay addition);
  • The Zeta Psi addition (view to south showing front of building with addition under construction);
  • The Chi Gamma Epsilon fire stair (view to north showing roofed but unenclosed fire escape — wonder why other houses didn’t do this if they could get away with it);
  • Kemeny-Haldeman (view to east; Carson terminates Webster Avenue and is framed by Haldeman and Carpenter);
  • The addition to Tabard (view to south showing rear of building; the Google driver went down this unnamed alley by the Choates before thinking better of it);
  • The addition to Phi Delta Alpha (view to south showing rear of interesting, almost agricultural addition);
  • The new Phi Tau (view to southeast showing side; the end view to the north shows the building’s interesting proportions);
  • Berry Row (view “down” to the south);
  • The McLaughlin Cluster (view of “outside” to the northeast; views “down” to southwest and “up” to northeast).
  • The New Hampshire Hall additions (view to southwest showing east end addition); and
  • “Whittemore Green” behind Thayer School (views of landscape including flowers and curving paths; hmmm).

Name change of campus firm (Atkin Olshin Schade)

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Atkin Olshin Lawson-Bell Architects is now Atkin Olshin Schade and presently features features Collis and Fahey-McLane on its front page.

The firm’s Collis page has some new photos, including one showing the Lone Pine Tavern. The only detailed plan of the Hitchcock renovation yet available is on the site as well.

Landscape master plan

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Saucier & Flynn offer a small version of what looks like a lushly-detailed landscape master plan for Dartmouth. The Tuck Mall portion is especially notable, since it shows the initial portion of the mall (what was the entire mall during the 1910s) as a broad academic field lined by paths, and only the more distant portion with a road in the center as is the case now.

The school put a sidewalk in on the north side of the mall last month, according to an article in The Dartmouth. The article did not note whether the sidewalk is the first step in implementing the master plan’s proposal for Tuck Mall.

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[Update 11.12.2012: Broken link to pdf below removed.]
[Update 07.24.2007: The Planning Board minutes of June 6, 2006 suggest that the sidewalk project is an implementation of the master plan.]

Hitchcock Hall undergoing major renovation

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Atkin Olshin Lawson-Bell is designing an extensive renovation of Hitchcock Hall, announced on the OPDC project page. The work will involve the demolition of all interior partitions (not the fireplaces), Charles Rich’s original shed-roofed (?) “resort room” in the crook of the ell, and the room’s early-1980s one-level flat-roofed expansion by Charles Hilgenhurst & Associates.

In the crook, on the original resort room footprint, will go a full-height enclosed fire stair in the same white-sided vocabulary as the interstitial elements of the firm’s Fahey and McLane Halls, across the Mall. The building will also gain a west entrance with a portico.

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[Update 11.10.2012: Broken link to article fixed.]
[Update 01.24.2007: link to fireplace note, other details added.]

New buildings named

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A press release on the names of the new dormitories includes two apparent firsts by Dartmouth: the first building, or part of a building, named for Samson Occom (Occom Commons in the McLaughlin Cluster) and the first building given someone’s first name or nickname: McLane Hall is still named for John Roy “Judge” McLane ’07, but it is switching to Judge Hall.

Names for five new dorms not announced

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The school seems not to have announced very loudly at the end of last month that the new Tuck Mall dorms will be named (from west to east) McLane Hall and Fahey Hall.

What happened to the old McLane Hall in the River Cluster? It has been renamed Judge Hall.

The three remaining dorms in the new McLaughlin Cluster will be named Thomas, Goldstein, and Rauner Halls (see map). Rauner will be the northernmost in the eastern trio, of which Bildner and Berry were named previously; Thomas and Goldstein Halls will be the northern and central buildings, respectively, in the western trio, of which Byrne II already has been named.

1,500-foot wells drilled near Tuck Drive

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The Dartmouth‘s article on LEED certification at Dartmouth mentions that the College has drilled two 1,500-foot wells to cool the Tuck Mall Dormitory — it’s interesting to note that the dorm is within 100 yards of the first wells dug at the College, the unsuccessful ones Eleazar Wheelock dug when he was trying to set up a hamlet near what is now the rear of Butterfield Hall.

Tuck Drive blocked

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This is Tuck Drive looking north to the construction site of the two linked Tuck Mall Dorms.   The dormitories will block the short leg of the Drive that headed left to join Webster Avenue, lately called “Old Tuck Drive” (though it is, if anything, younger than the main portion of Tuck Drive, which is the portion that connects with Main Street along what is now Tuck Mall.   That portion of the Drive will be reopened).


Dartmouth photo

Projects underway

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The Review has posted its latest issue, which includes a list of projects underway, some stats for the north campus, and a thoughtful article on the new construction by Joseph Rago, who quotes Dean Redman on the planning of the new dorms north of Maynard: “We learned from our mistakes in East Wheelock[.]”

Remember, you heard about the “mini-mansard” here first!   (Actually, mini-mansard is probably not the right word, since the roof does not slope at the gable ends: perhaps it is a cryptogambrel?)

Tuck Mall dorm plans, others

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Plenty of new views of the Tuck Mall Dorm are on line.   Tony Atkin’s firm, which designed McCulloch and the Collis renovation, is designing these two connected dormitories.

The new views indicate that the buildings will have more architectural detail than was apparent in smaller renderings.   Each building uses an interesting mini-mansard to imply that its top level is part of the roof, an effect that is necessary on what will be one of Dartmouth’s tallest dorms, at five levels.

The siting also is clearer now in a tentative site plan.   For reference, that is Butterfield/Sage at the right and Webster Avenue at the top.   Larson and Pope each planned more dorms here than this new cluster will introduce, both architects suggesting that new buildings branch off at the angle of Webster as Butterfield did during the late 1930s; see Pope’s very long row behind Webster and compare Pope’s view of this spot (showing from left two proposed dorms, then Russell Sage) with the current project (again, two new dorms, then Sage); the new project actually seems better because it holds down the edge of Tuck Mall, which did not exist in Pope’s plan.   In fact, this dorm should make the mall even stronger than before, with Butterfield fading off to the northwest weakly.   The strong building of the two looks like it might face Streeter directly.