Landscape: A Walk at Bates College Encourages Spontaneous Gatherings

Bates College’s Bates Walk (Sasaki Associates Inc. photo)

This $3-million pedestrian landscape links Bates College’s new $23-million campus center, the Commons, with the rest of campus, and it also reconnects previously severed academic, social, and cultural venues. At night, long rectangular benches illuminate birch trees and encourage informal gathering. An adjacent amphitheater sloping down toward a campus pond can serve as either an academic forum or a space for outdoor performances. Both the walk and the 54,000-square-foot Commons were designed by Sasaki Associates Inc.

You can search The Chronicle‘s online database of new campus construction projects and renovations for other recent landscapes or campus centers.