Dartmo.

Speaking of graphic design, the new hotel on South Street (behind Hanover Park, where Panda House used to be) has been named Six South Street and has been given a logo by Vreeland Marketing & Design.

Detail of logo

While the hotel is to be welcomed and its builders admired for their boldness and attention to urban design, the logo deserves some criticism:

The word “Street” really should be written out. While “South St.” might be part of an address, the thoroughfare that gives its name to the hotel is “South Street.” The word “Six” seems to have been spelled out to add formality or pretense, the way it is in “The Wall Street Inn” (not the plain-old “Wall St. Inn”). So the word “Street” should be as well. Only an address plaque on the building should read “6 South St.” After all, both “Six” and “South” have shorter versions that could have been used but weren’t. And even though “Hotel” is on its own line, it still makes the logo seem to refer to a “Saint Hotel” (“St. Hotel”).

When a word is abbreviated, it requires a period. Probably to prevent the letters “ST” from appearing to retreat from the righthand edge, the logo omits the period. This should have been solved some other way.

The Zahm Courtyard, the sunken and largely stone-lined space between the Inn and the Hop, was redesigned specifically as a site for war memorials a few years ago by Saucier + Flynn. (The school’s WWII/Korea memorial plaque had moved there a few years before that.) Now Dartmouth has added its 9/11 memorial.

The tenth Earl of Dartmouth visited campus in April (The Dartmouth, press release). The press release has a short video.

The Dartmouth reports that Olympia’s planned “boutique” hotel will not be built but that the project has been handed off to another developer.

A College newsletter says “The Hanover Inn is in the early planning stages of building renovations to include the guest rooms, 1st floor conference rooms, and main floor kitchen, dining and lobby areas” and names Truex Cullins & Partners as the architects. The Inn is considering expanding its footprint (Dartmouth College Finance and Administration News 1:1 (January 16, 2007), 3, [pdf] (viewed November 19, 2008)). The Inn’s website also notes that “[w]e are planning a full renovation of The Hanover Inn within the next few years and we intend to pursue our commitment to make this a model hotel for environmental concerns” (Hanover Inn, “Environmental Commitment” (updated October 21, 2008, viewed November 18, 2008)).

This project is among those whose planning was put on hold recently.

The current project list out of Dartmouth’s design office (TruexCullins & Partners appears to have studied the renovation project and considered recommending the construction of 30-room addition to the Inn.