Shop Talk: New Lawn for Jefferson, New Boathouse by Wright, and More

Academical Metropolis: The University of Virginia has begun construction of a $105-million expansion that will extend Jefferson’s famous Lawn and add 112,000 square feet of classrooms and offices for the College of Arts and Sciences, according to the Charlottesville Daily Progress. In what’s known as the South Lawn Project, the university will put up a 95-foot-wide, grass-covered walkway over a major thoroughfare, Jefferson Park Avenue, that now marks the southern terminus of the Lawn area. The walkway will connect with a circular park that will let users turn east to a series of new buildings. An overlook will recapture the mountain view that was a feature of Jefferson’s original design, but was blocked when the university constructed Stanford White’s Cabell Hall in 1899.

Late Wright: A boathouse that Frank Lloyd Wright originally designed for the University of Wisconsin in 1905 has finally been built — in Buffalo. According to the Associated Press, the two-story, Prairie-style building was put up by a nonprofit corporation, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Rowing Boathouse, at a cost of $5.5-million. It will be used by an existing rowing club in the city, which has a number of other Wright-designed buildings.

Women in Science and Architecture: Mills College will dedicate its new 26,000-square-foot science building later this month. The $17-million building (left) will house the college’s biology, chemistry, physics, and psychology departments, and the college is making a point of saying that it was designed by a mostly female architectural team. Princeton University’s president, Shirley M. Tilghman, will speak at the dedication. (Mills College photograph)