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July 17, 2008, 10:12 AM ET
In Maine, a College Recycles Chicken Coops—as Offices and Dorms
Unity College has reused four buildings originally constructed to hatch chickens, including these two. The building on the right, called North Coop, houses administrative offices. On the left is South Coop, which houses classrooms and an art gallery. (Chronicle photographs by Lawrence Biemiller)
Unity, Me.— Lots of colleges recycle buildings. Elegant old libraries have become admissions offices (Lebanon Valley College) and guest houses (Davidson College), while outgrown athletics facilities have been remodeled as academic buildings (University of Virginia) and recital halls (Bowdoin College). Harvard University has made offices out of part of an old utility plant, and Vassar College is in the middle of a project that will recycle an 1864 observatory to house its education department. But I can’t think of an institution besides Unity College that has reused chicken coops.
Unity, founded in 1965, occupies 225 acres that were once George E. Constable’s thriving chicken hatchery, and four of the big hatchery buildings, heavily remodeled, are still in use. North Coop houses administrative offices, including the president’s, while South Coop houses classrooms, faculty offices, and an art galley. Eastview and Westview are residence halls—unless someone told you they had once been poultry buildings, you’d never know. The Constable farmhouse now houses the college’s development office.
Given Unity’s focus on the environment and sustainability, recycling buildings makes perfect sense. The dining hall that links the North and South Coops, by the way, recycled the solar panels that Jimmy Carter mounted on the White House roof while he was president. They stopped working a few years ago, but they’re interesting reminders of the federal government’s policy shifts over the years.
The former chicken coops are not, alas, particularly attractive. Much more appealing is a circular rock garden with Stonehenge-like features that was constructed in 2006. In the center, benches are arranged around a yin-yang symbol, while plantings set the garden off from the surrounding lawn. The garden is known, appropriately enough, as “Unity Rocks!”—Lawrence Biemiller
“Unity Rocks!” is a small but idyllic landscape feature near the center of the campus.
The rock garden was constructed just downhill from Unity’s library.
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