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• May 2008 (23)
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The Harvard Design Magazine has a lengthy examination of the significance of the new Allston campus, the design of which puts an emphasis on environmental issues.

Nathalie Beauvais, the principal architect for Harvard University’s Allston Development Group, says that designers no longer have to compromise aesthetics for environmental responsibility. (Some might say they never had to.)

“We are entering an era in which building and landscape performance to minimize negative effects of the built world on nature will take a leading role,” she writes. “The old cliché that the pursuit of greenness in buildings is inevitably in conflict with the pursuit of aesthetic quality is disappearing fast. Green features are no longer being thought of as ‘tack-ons,’ like solar roof panels, but instead as elements as integral as support beams or doors. One must design using green features and making them as aesthetically rich and appealing as any other aspect of buildings.”

Allston will be an “integrated design process,” in which engineers and designers are working closely together, and choices in aesthetics and materials are deeply influenced by materials’ performance.

That’s a trend that many have observed and written about, Ms. Beauvais says. “Rem Koolhaas has written that ‘whenever there is a revolution, or fast change, in architecture, professional barriers break down as specialists exchange roles. Architects become sculptors, engineers become designers, artists turn into architects, and all these job descriptions become fuzzy.’… In Some Assembly Required, Michael Sorkin argues for a reunion of architecture and urbanism both to meet their global and local responsibilities and to fulfill their promise of joy. Landscape architecture and engineering should be added to his list. Sorkin’s statement is idealistic, but ultimately nothing less should drive the making of cities and campuses.”

A fire at Delft University, in the Netherlands, has destroyed a number of rare design artifacts and architecture books, along with the building that housed them and the architecture department. Fortunately no one was hurt.

“The faculty building caught alight, then spread to the library and the historic chair collection — which includes Rietveld’s Red and Blue chair,” Tony Fretton, a visiting professor at the university’s architecture department, told Building Design. “The fire brigade couldn’t get close to it and decided to stand back and let the fire burn itself out. The whole building is gutted. The effect will be enormous — there are 3,000 students. It’s a complete calamity.”

The building was undergoing a renovation at the time. Authorities believe the fire was started by a water leak in a coffee machine, which led to a short circuit.

New farm buildings: The University of Maryland is planning a green building for its research farm near Ellicott City. The 35,000-square-foot building, estimated to cost up to $15-million, will utilize solar and wind energy, rain-collection systems, and biological systems to treat wastewater. As a home for the university’s agriculture-extension service, the building will also stand as a living laboratory and educational tool. “This project presents an opportunity for us to facilitate the demonstration of green building,” Cheng-i Wei, dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, told The Sun. “People will be able to see what we can do.” Meanwhile, Montana State University’s agriculture college plans to construct new teaching and research facilities on its Bozeman, Mont., campus, according to The Prairie Star. The facilities, which will cost $16-million, will start going up in June, even though university officials have not raised all the money for the project. The university is also planning a $5-million research and teaching facility for the campus’s Town Farm.

The pitch: John Strasser, the president of St. Clair College, wants the province of Ontario to pay for a $25-million (Canadian) applied-health-sciences center, according to The Windsor Star. Mr. Strasser would like to put the building in downtown Windsor if the city would provide the land; the city was hoping the University of Windsor would put an engineering building on that same plot, but the university ultimately decided to keep that building on its campus. The 112,000-square-foot health-sciences project would be part of $100-million the province is planning to give colleges for higher-education capital projects.

More green: In Indiana, Butler University has broken ground a new $14-million pharmacy building that is aiming for a silver certification in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. It will open in 2009.

And good news for lazy janitors: An engineer at the University of Miami is working on a self-cleaning paint that utilizes embedded titanium-dioxide crystals and ultraviolet light to break up dirt and grime on its surface. The paint, which is said to be environmentally friendly, is now being tested on the walls at the university research lab.

Lawrence Speck, one of May’s Buildings & Grounds guest bloggers, is professor of architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was dean of architecture from 1992 to 2001. He is also a principal in the architecture firm Page Southerland Page.

I hear a lot of negative comments about Modern buildings put up from the 1950s through the 1980s. Many are deemed to be ugly and intrusive and to contribute little to the overall environment of the historic campuses on which they were built. They are often described as boxy and graceless, as eyesores. Their roofs have often leaked and they have had serious maintenance problems, fueling the flames of rejection. At my own institution, the University of Texas at Austin, two structures from this period engender extraordinary venom—an enormous dormitory and a complex of buildings built for engineering.

Lawrence Speck

I absolutely agree with this assessment of many buildings of this era. I don’t think the problem was Modernism, though, so much an attitude toward building in that period. It was a time of enormous growth in higher education, and campuses across the country were adding buildings at breakneck speed. It was also a very pragmatic period, and many universities were just trying to get a lot more square feet quickly at the minimum cost per square foot. University administrations proudly compared themselves to real-estate developers for whom the short-term bottom line was the measure of success. Administrators seemed to forget that—unlike developers who could depreciate buildings quickly and sell them—universities keep their buildings for decades or even centuries. The short-term bottom line is not a good measure of success.

It just so happened that this period of economic misjudgment coincided with an increasing interest in Modern building. It was also convenient that an architectural expression like Modernism, which eschewed applied ornament and labor-intensive construction methods, could be dumbed down and built cheaply more easily than could some other expressions. So we got a lot of cheap, ugly Modern buildings.

Thankfully, we also got a fair number of very beautiful Modern buildings on campuses in this era. They stand as proof of the ability of this expression to fit amiably into a historic context and to express their era with poignancy and grace. It’s time to give full appreciation to these fine buildings and to embrace them as integral and important contributions to the total campus environment.

Two extraordinary examples of Modern buildings are worth special mention because they are particularly responsive and appropriate on their campuses, but also express the technologies and social character of their era. Yale University’s Morse and Stiles Colleges, designed by Eero Saarinen and completed in 1962, were the first new residential colleges constructed on the campus since World War II. They build on the strong tradition of other residential colleges at Yale both in their general configuration (which promotes a strong sense of community) and their visual character. But these are unabashedly Modern buildings. They seem completely integral with their neighbors and yet they are fresh iconic expressions of their era, built with construction methods and materials that are appropriate to the technology of the 1960s.

The library at Phillips Exeter Academy—a prep school with a campus as historic as any university’s—is another example of a beautifully integrated Modern building. Designed by Louis Kahn and completed in 1972, this building occupies the heart of its largely Georgian red-brick campus. It has the same simple geometry, regular rhythms of windows, and strong masonry walls as its neighbors. But it is unapologetically Modern.

There are also, of course, whole campuses or large parts of campuses built in this era that show how powerful Modern buildings can be in ensembles. Two that come to mind are the Illinois Institute of Technology, with a core of buildings by Mies van der Rohe, and Trinity University in San Antonio, by O’Neil Ford and many associated architects. And then there are those one-off Modern buildings that do in fact stick out in their contexts but are very powerful and wonderful nevertheless—like the Carpenter Center at Harvard University, by Le Corbusier.

I think it’s time to differentiate the slip-shod, poorly made Modern buildings from the very fine ones and to understand the great contribution this expression has made, and continues to make, to campus environments. —Lawrence Speck

You can read Mr. Speck’s earlier post here.

Harvard University’s plan to close its main art-museum building for a five-year renovation by the architect Renzo Piano is sure to fever armchair architecture critics. Fans of the existing Fogg Museum, with its Georgian facade and columned courtyard, will want to have their say, as will people eager to praise or disparage Mr. Piano’s alterations—which The Boston Globe says will be unveiled Sunday. Mr. Piano’s work has come under fire lately because he has developed—at least according to Bloomberg’s architecture writer, James S. Russell—a habit of recycling his early masterpieces.

(Harvard U. image)

What Harvard’s plan downplays, though, is the uncertain fate of the wonderful 1985 building that currently houses the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, which has collections of ancient, Islamic, Asian, and Indian art. The building, a masterpiece of the Postmodern movement, was designed by the British architect James Stirling, who died in 1992. Its exterior is subdued, to say the least—alternating bands of tan and dark-gray brick decorate a long wall overlooking Quincy Street, and bold blocks create a cyclopean window over the entrance, on Broadway. The doorway itself takes its shape from ancient architectural forms. (You can see a larger photograph here.)

What makes the Sackler building so memorable, though, is a spectacular stairway that organizes the interior for visitors, carrying them down from the ancient-art galleries on the third floor and the Asian galleries on the second floor to the entrance at street level. Pierced by interior windows and interrupted by landings, it also serves as the building’s main aesthetic statement and chief pleasure—it’s the big wow. A picture wouldn’t begin to do it justice—it’s architecture that has to be experienced to be appreciated.

The columns on either side of the Sackler building’s doorway were originally intended to hold up a bridge that was to connect the Sackler to the main museum complex on Quincy Street. There the Fogg is housed in a 1925 building by Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott, and the Busch-Reisinger occupies an adjoining structure. But the bridge plan is long since forgotten. When the Fogg and the Busch-Reisinger close this summer, the Sackler building will be converted to a home for changing exhibitions of items from all of the university’s art collections. It will be interesting to see how creatively the building serves different exhibitions over the next five years.

But after the Piano renovation is complete, the Sackler’s collections will be housed in the main complex. What Harvard says about Stirling’s delightful building is not exactly encouraging: “The long-term use of the building at 485 Broadway is currently under review by the University.” That could mean anything—either “Two deans are fighting over who gets this gem” or “We need that lot for something else.” With any kind of luck, it will be the former.

Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado stood in front of an infamous hole in the ground at the Auraria Higher Education Center on Monday to sign a bill giving colleges at least $200-million to help pay for a dozen construction projects across the state, the Cherry Creek News reported.

The hole is the site of a planned science building, where construction was briefly put on hold in March after the legislature yanked $37.5-million for the project. Lawmakers subsequently reversed course and passed a measure to raise oil and gas taxes to pay for that building as well as 11 more.

The construction money comes on top of a 9-percent increase that Colorado lawmakers doled out to higher education from the state’s general fund in next year’s budget. Governor Ritter, a Democrat, also is backing a ballot measure to raise state scholarship funds by an estimated $120-million. —Eric Kelderman

(Tarrant County College image)

Campus critic wins board election: Joe Hudson, a critic of Tarrant County College’s new campus in downtown Fort Worth, Tex., won election Saturday to a vacant seat on the Tarrant County College District Board, taking 70 percent of the vote in a race that featured record spending—with much of the money provided by a businessman who has opposed plans to build the $257-million campus. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Mr. Hudson received $16,000 in contributions from the businessman, Larry Meeker. Mr. Meeker also contributed $11,000 to a candidate attempting to unseat another member of the board who has supported the new campus. But the incumbent in that race, Kristin Vandergriff, won 61 percent of the vote. The college says that the 360,000-square-foot new campus, due to open in 2010, will enroll 3,500 students in its first year. The campus, which will bridge the Trinity River, was designed by Bing Thom Architects, of Vancouver, British Columbia, with Gideon Toal, of Fort Worth, as architects of record.

‘Cone zone’ in Fort Collins: As Colorado State University starts in on construction projects that include academic, residential, and parking structures, university officials are warning students and faculty members to expect related inconveniences, says The Coloradoan, a newspaper in Fort Collins, the university’s hometown. The university will put up $300-million worth of buildings in the next two years, adding about 344,000 square feet of space and letting the institution increase the size of freshman classes by 200 students. Among the projects are a 120,000-square-foot, $45-million academic building that is designed to achieve gold-level LEED certification and a $1.2-million plant that will burn wood chips to provide heat for a portion of the campus.

A new performing-arts center at the Manassas campus of George Mason U. will open in 2010. (George Mason U. image)

Performance space for the suburbs: A $44-million performing-arts center designed by Holzman Moss is under construction on the Manassas, Va., campus of George Mason University, according to the Web site InsideNoVA.com. The 86,000-square-foot complex will have a 1,166-seat main hall, a 300-seat theater, and rehearsal and support spaces.

A glass dome will serve as the visible portion of a library addition at the U. of Chicago, designed by Helmut Jahn. The bulk of the building will be underground. (U. of Chicago images)

The University of Chicago is planning a $80-million library addition, designed by Chicago architect Helmut Jahn. The library will take the form of a glass dome and will sit close to the university’s Brutalist Joseph Regenstein Library. The library, which will open in 2010, will be named in honor of Joe Mansueto, chairman and chief executive officer of Morningstar Inc., and his wife, Rika, who gave $25-million to the project.

The dome will rise 35 feet above the surface, and according to The Chicago Tribune, it will have a coating that will help reduce heat gain in the summer and heat loss in the winter. (It will also be coated with dots to reduce the number of birds that might smack into it.)

Most of the building will be hidden underground. Book vaults, stacks, special collections, and preservation facilities will exist in the bulk of the building 50 feet underground. The high-density system will have the capacity to store 3.5 million books and will allow patrons to get access to books instantly with the help of a robotic retrieval system. The university acquires about 150,000 books a year, so the space is expected to provide about 22 years of growth.

Even though space on the urban campus is tight, faculty members were adamant that books should remain close by and accessible — they would not stand for moving books to an off-campus storage facility, as many research universities have. “The experience of most of these other libraries is that the off-site stuff doesn’t get used,” Andrew Abbott, a sociology professor who served on a library-planning board, told The Chronicle in 2005. “People go to work where books are easily available.”

Mr. Jahn’s design joins other glassy structures by signature architects that have been built on the campus recently, including a business school by Raphael Viñoly and an athletics center by Cesar Pelli. His library design for Chicago is also well within the tradition of underground libraries at space-crunched research universities, such as Cornell University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Minnesota. —Scott Carlson

Xarissa Holdaway, one of May’s Buildings & Grounds guest bloggers, is campus e-news coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation’s campus-ecology project. She is a graduate of Brigham Young University, where she majored in English. She says that a summer she spent studying and eating pastries in Paris sparked an interest in baking, which prompted an interest in the global food-supply network and in fair-trade issues, which led to her interest in sustainability.

When I moved recently, it became blindingly clear to me that my eco-cred was on dangerous ground. I’d just taken a job at the campus-ecology department at the National Wildlife Federation that would allow me to work with sustainability at universities, and in my personal life I was pretty hardcore about turning lights off and buying pesticide-free produce. Finally, I thought, with my new job and apartment my daily life will align with the things I value.

Xarissa Holdaway

I quickly realized, however, that when it came to finding a home, there was no easy “green” choice. My new office, in a suburb far outside of Washington, was built on the premise that a Metro line would soon be close enough for employees to use public transit, but delays and financing disputes have made that unlikely. No matter, I thought. I could live close enough to walk, saving gas and taking advantage of the miles of bike and walking trails in the area. It would be like my college days, when I lived six blocks from campus and actually had to use my legs to get places.

But while a five-minute walking commute would save me a lot of stress, time, carbon emissions, and money, it would effectively cut me off from the city infrastructure that drew me to D.C. in the first place. Most of my friends are based in the city, as are shops, museums, festivals, restaurants, and theaters. I believe strongly that living in convenient, higher-density areas (ideally with plenty of built-in green space) is good for people’s well-being, so I didn’t want to bind myself to a sprawling suburb that would make my work commute a dream but then leave me driving six miles to pick up eggs and spending an hour and a half in traffic to get to downtown D.C. On the other hand, living downtown and commuting out to my office was an option I’d already tried and rejected.

This was a choice I never had to make as a student. Our campus was big (about 30,000 students and staff members), but it was dense and plenty close to off-campus housing. I didn’t need a car for errands, work, or play. Every resource I needed was well within my reach. I could chat with a professor about a paper, go to class, visit the dentist, work a four-hour shift at our study-abroad office, attend another class, meet a friend for dinner, stop for groceries, and still get back to my apartment in time for roommate poker (using chocolate bars instead of money, since Brigham Young University didn’t exactly encourage such degenerate gambling activities). I didn’t need to invest in a car until just before graduation, and BYU earned my business by planning around my needs. Our relationship was symbiotic and mutually beneficial.

Campuses that are designed to meet student needs are not only good for business—since I’m sure I paid a premium for the convenience of on-campus shopping—but also good for students and faculty members. Because of their limited size and desire for good viewbook photos, many universities unconsciously follow smart-growth principles, offering centralized shopping and eating areas, walkability, common places for gathering, and plenty of green space. The benefits of this kind of development go far beyond media relations: It lessens traffic congestion and air pollution, reduces crime rates, and encourages socializing, strong community networks, and the combining of resources—all things I saw firsthand as an undergrad. Ultimately, residents are happier. And campus-wide planning creates opportunities for utility and building systems that piggyback on each other to conserve water and electricity. (Sadly, most campuses don’t take advantange of these opportunities as well as they could, which I’ll try to address in future posts.)

In case you’re curious about how my housing search turned out, I ended up choosing a place that was a bit of a compromise. A Metro stop about a mile’s walk away gets me to downtown D.C. in half an hour. I still have to drive to work, and so far I haven’t found anyone to carpool with. But my neighborhood is tree-lined and walkable, and almost everything I need is within a 20-minute radius, including a neighbor who lets me use a section of her patio to grow the vegetables that won’t thrive in my west-facing apartment. It’s not perfect, but until we plan our cities the way we plan our campuses, it’s a start.

Paul R. Brenner, a computer scientist at the University of Notre Dame, will use the natural drafts in a South Bend greenhouse to cool computer processors. At the same time, the greenhouse will benefit from the heat the machines generate. (U. of Notre Dame photos)

The University of Notre Dame has come up with a plan that will save both the university and the city of South Bend a little money on their energy bills. The university has put 400-pound computer processors, which kick out a lot of heat, in the city’s greenhouse that holds desert plants. The circulation of air in the greenhouse will help keep the computers cool, while the computers will help heat the space.

According to The South Bend Tribune, the plan will save the university about $100,000 in utility costs, even after the university pays for the electricity to power the processors. The city spent about $70,000 to heat the space last year — it’s not clear how much those bills will go down. In the winter, university officials plan to scale up the project, bringing in more computer processors to supply more heat.

Officials at the university hope that this sort of idea could be used in other settings, wherever these large research computers are used.

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