Southern Vermont College has opened a 41,000-square-foot, $7.5-million building that mixes living space for 110 students with a science lab, a computer lab, offices, a wellness center, and a glassy atrium. The building—the college's first new structure in 17 years—also includes a simulation lab in which nursing students can practice procedures on interactive patient simulators. Called Hunter Hall, the building was designed by Centerline Architects.

Hunter Hall is Southern Vermont College's first new building in 17 years. (Southern Vermont College photo)

Campus architecture and facilities news from around the Web:

• Revisiting Furness's Library at the U. of Pennsylvania (left; Chronicle photograph by Lawrence Biemiller)

• Downturn Stalls Plans for Upscale East Campus District at U. of Maryland at College Park

• Rice U. Architect Describes Master Plan for the Campus

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The California Institute of Technology wants its newest building to bring together researchers from a variety of disciplines to solve information-science questions—and save energy and water at the same time.

Frederick Fisher and Partners designed Caltech's new interdisciplinary-research building. (Caltech photos)

The 47,000-square-foot, $22-million building, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology, is a sharp-looking classroom-and-office facility that is intended to earn gold-level certification in the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. It was designed by the Los Angeles firm...

Campus architecture and facilities news from around the Web:

• 2 North Carolina Universities Break Ground for Joint Research Facility

• State Funds Released for Projects at U. of Hawaii at Hilo

• U. of Virginia Officials Try to Respect Jefferson's Vision for Campus

• Renovation of Arizona State U. Union Earns LEED Gold

The United Negro College Fund has received a $1.8-million grant from the Kresge Foundation that will help establish training programs to promote green building at minority-serving institutions. The program was set up with the help of Second Nature, a leading sustainability organization in higher education.

The grant will establish institutes and workshops to train college staff members in green-building practices. The fund plans three workshops, in Atlanta, Minneapolis, and San Antonio, starting this February. The American Indian Higher Education Consortium, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund will also participate.

The $2-billion Kresge Foundation is known for giving money to construction programs. In a news conference this morning, William F.L. Moses, director of programs, said that because of Kresge's...

Campus architecture and facilities news from around the Web:

• Indiana U. Dedicates Center for University Researchers and Start-Ups (Left: the Innovation Center, designed by BSA LifeStructures; Indiana U. photo by Aaron Bernstein)

• Mall Linking State Capitol to U. of Nebraska Awaits Renovation

• Pereira's New England Center at U. of New Hampshire Makes 'Seven to Save' List

• Update on New...

The U. of Chicago's Logan Center for the Arts is due to open in 2012. (U. of Chicago images)

On Tuesday evening the University of Chicago unveiled plans for a $114-million, 170,000-square-foot arts complex with an 11-story tower, sheathed in stone and glass, that seems certain to become a local landmark. The building, designed by the New York architecture firm Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, is to be constructed beside the city's famous Midway Plaisance, now the southern edge of the campus and once the pleasure grounds of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Groundbreaking is set for next spring, and the facility is expected to open in 2012.

Campus architecture and facilities news from around the Web:

• Despite Endowment Losses, Stanford U. Builds at a Record Pace

• $10-Million Gift Will Help Pay for Expansion at U. of Michigan Law School 

• Architecture Programs Get Boosts from New Facilities

• Local Contractors Complain That Northern Arizona U. Has Shut Them Out

Middlebury College recently found that a 40-year-old chairlift at its ski facility, the Snow Bowl, was in need of repair and would not meet state regulations. Instead of spending $500,000 for repairs to the double-chair lift, a university release says, the college is spending $1.7-million to replace the old lift with a triple-chair version.

As the video below explains, some of the concrete foundations of the lift towers were failing. Workers could have replaced those concrete foundations, but that would have been considered a major modification that would trigger requirements to bring the rest of the lift up to code. Getting the concrete for the piers up the mountain, as you can see in the video, is no small project. The workmen have to use a helicopter to fly the soupy...

Campus architecture and facilities news from around the Web:

• U. of Nebraska Picks Zaha Hadid to Create Initial Designs for Museum Expansion

• Catholic U. Begins Installing 1,000 Solar Panels

• Loyola U. in New Orleans Updates Utility Infrastructure

• U. of Alabama Unveils Design for Plaza Recalling Desegregation Standoff