Various topics including two West End flythroughs

Posted on 05.06.2021 by Regisseur

The experience design page at Arup has a small blurb about the Hopkins Center project with a conceptual illustration. It is difficult to tell what space the image depicts, but it could be a new room built within the Hop Courtyard.
This has not been mentioned much, but the architect of record for the Snøhetta Hop project is EYP (see “Snøhetta to redesign Dartmouth College’s arts center,” The Construction Specifier (15 February 2021)). EYP is doing a lot in Hanover these days, including some of the Dartmouth Row remodelings. The firm also conducted studies that are leading up to the new power plant/green energy project.
See Katie Angen, “Dartmouth’s 1960s-era Anonymous Hall makes a name for itself with 2030 overhaul,” The Architect’s Newspaper (31 March 2021); David Malone, “Dartmouth College’s new faculty and graduate student center completes,” Building Design + Construction (26 February 2021); Matthew Marani, “With an Array of Sustainability Measures, Dartmouth’s Newest Building Stands Above the Pack,” Metropolis (2 June 2021). Some articles about Anonymous Hall refer to the space to the north as “a north quad,” which is fine, but others refer to “North Quad,” which does not seem right.
The current images for the Dartmouth Hall remodeling show the subtle front podium. At the moment, the project update page has an excellent photo of a shutterless building with scaffolding around the cupola. The renovation of the Charles Rich-designed building involves the insertion of new structural steel framing and concrete floors (Amar Scherzer, “Thornton Hall renovation to finish in summer, Irving Institute construction to complete in fall,” The Dartmouth (11 May 2021)).
A nice flythrough video shows the CECS building; for some reason the markings on the glass bridge that will indicate where the extra ten-foot segment was added do not appear in the video. Oh well. Instead of “Kemeny Hardenberg,” as shown on the HGA page, the entrance to the building in the video now reads “Center for Engineering and Computer Science.” How is the abbreviation pronounced, by the way — is it Kex or Secs? The North to West Utility Extension page shows how very large the building is.
There are several new photos of the Irving under construction and a new flythrough video available on the building’s project page. It is so good to see the facade of the old Murdough Center, its glass hoarding now white-framed instead of black, preserved within the new atrium.
Old news: the college constructed a pair of 60 x 120 skating rinks on the Green in January, and a light installation was installed in the Bema in February.
A fascinating study of early 19th-century parasitic infection has emerged from the summer 2019 archaeological work at the Choate House site on Wentworth Street (Amy Olson, “Studying 200-Year-Old Privy on Campus Hits Pay Dirt,” Dartmouth News (3 May 2021)). The recent growth in campus archaeology continues to thrill (and to revive a sense of regret over potential missed opportunities in the 1990s, including on the southeast corner of the Green).
Something’s going on around here: The privy article refers to “Dartmouth Libraries’ Baker-Berry Library” and the recent iconography article refers to “Dartmouth Library’s Baker Library.” Surely a reader of the official Dartmouth News website is not going to mistake Baker for a constituent facility of the Town of Hanover’s Howe Library? On a somewhat-related note, the new Indoor Practice Facility displays the words DARTMOUTH INDOOR PRACTICE FACILITY. Why the “DARTMOUTH”? Could it be mistaken for a Hanover High facility? Perhaps the word is just standing in for the name of a donor.
Influential planning historian John Reps died on November 12 (Edith Fikes and Patti Witten, “Urban planning historian John W. Reps dies at age 98,” Cornell Chronicle (25 November 2020)). He became interested in maps at Dartmouth, where he was a member of the Class of 1943. His history of his collecting is worth a read.
The book Beneath the Green: The Map at Dartmouth is a 2019 collection of student projects from Mary Flanagan’s mapmaking class.
See Merideth Barnett, “Honoring the Past, Shifting for the Future,” Currents Magazine (1 May 2021) for a look at campus traditions that includes Dartmouth among its examples. In this article, “advancement professionals and higher education researchers share why traditions endure, how they shift, and what role advancement today plays in celebrating and shaping them.”
Here is an interesting college tradition: digging up a different buried bottle of seeds every 20 years (Cara Giaimo, “One of the World’s Oldest Science Experiments Comes Up From the Dirt,” New York Times (21 April 2021).

Various topics, including unbuilt buildings

Posted on 29.01.2021 by Regisseur

An article in The Dartmouth notes the completion of work on Reed and Baker and the start of work on Dartmouth Hall.
The HGA [architects] page for the CECS building has an image showing main entrance with the name KEMENY HARDENBERG above the door.
The Goody Clancy page on the Irving Institute is up.
What might have been: The central and right-hand groups of images on Samer Afifi’s site show (1) a more traditionally-massed CECS on the site where it is now being built and (2) a very unfortunately sited Irving Institute way back on the River Cluster site — not only distant from any important campus axis but also blocking any further Tuck School expansion.
This has been noted here before, but it is always fun to see: A Kliment/Halsband-designed addition to the Shower Towers to house Sudikoff. It looks perfectly pleasant, but it must have been overtaken by VSBA planning for Berry Row.
Kellogg Auditorium, perhaps the only building at Dartmouth named for a room, has been renamed Kellogg Hall and renovated as a classroom building. It opened last fall (Susan Green, “Newly Renovated and Renamed Kellogg Hall Opens” (29 September 2020)).
Dartmouth News has a piece on the importance of the DHMC parking lot as a social space in pandemic times.
Many outlets, including the Concord Monitor, have written about the huge college-affiliated apartment complex that will be built on Route 120 at Mt. Support Road.
The Davison Block, a prominent and historic commercial building at the top of Main Street in downtown Hanover, has been sold by the Davison family, reports the Valley News.
The Valley News also had an article on a sort of Christkindlmarkt that was set up in Hanover over the holidays. Fantastic. So many nice touches could be added to downtown, especially on South Main Street above Lebanon Street, whether by raising the street level (happening?), adding bollards, or limiting traffic and parking. An inviting town square could be delineated in front of the Municipal Building.
The Valley News reports on the college’s pullback from the idea of a new biomass heating plant. This is probably good news for the preservation of the old smokestack.
There are some great photos in the annual roundup of shots by Dartmouth photographers. The aerial of Baker Lawn does look like a De Stijl painting, as noted. It might look even more like a work in batik, an impression created by the imperfections in the edges of the paths and the snow-covered roofs.

The master plan: initial impressions

Posted on 05.12.2020 by Regisseur

See the latest version of Planning for Possibilities on the Presentations and Outcomes page. So far, the October 2020 draft plan and a slide deck have been posted.

The new master plan is very impressive.

The scope of the plan is impressive. It is the first master plan for the college to at least account for all college properties (the map on page 5 is zoomed out so far that it shows part of Canada) and the first plan to frame the campus in a regional context. Especially where transit is concerned, the Organic Farm and DHMC really do need to appear on the same map.

The document is more readable and less technical than its predecessors. Its creators made the interesting decision to use oblique aerial views exclusively — meaning that none of the proposals for development appear as flat “plans.”

The potential projects on campus look excellent. Placing a building on the lawn of Shabazz Hall makes so much sense. The natural site for a new physical sciences building beyond Burke of course requires yet another demolition of Dragon. The proposals for Bartlett and Wheeler additions are fantastic, with the latter being particularly bold. The natural row behind Mass Row could incorporate an abutment of, or at least an entry plaza for, the Cemetery Bridge at its south end. The Bema pavilion makes sense (maybe the place will see more use if it has a proper covered stage?), though erecting a frame building would be unusual in that space.

One might wish the planners had considered building on the vacant lots in front of Sanborn and south of Blunt as well. And why not show a building site on Berry Row between Kemeny and Moore? It has always been planned that way, even going back to VSBA days after the purchase of the hospital property. Oh well. (The plan also does not clearly note the anticipated Ledyard Canoe Club replacement, but that is not important.)

Here’s hoping that the college preserves the old frame buildings that are now standing on the various development sites. There are two buildings on the site behind Mass Row, two on the Choate Road corner, two in front of Thompson, and two on College Street next to Sudikoff. There is also a certain amount of appeal to the idea of saving Sudikoff itself, the village-like assemblage of brick house-forms, and of saving Raven, but neither building is of a scale to stand up to Moore Hall next door. Clearing the Sudikoff corner is the breaking of eggs to make an omelet in this plan.

The big question: Hilton Field (the western portion of the golf course)

The plan proposes that the oldest portion of the shuttered golf course be turned into an arboretum. This is a clever choice, especially given the neighborhood and its sensitivities. An arboretum really is typologically and functionally similar to a golf course or, for that matter, a city park or a cemetery. In the end, this minor change in use might amount to nothing more than ceding the land to nature as at the adjacent (and intermingled!) Pine Park. And yet an arboretum will not take Hilton Field off the table for some distant future development if it is needed. Still, the college would probably be remiss not to put a half-dozen houses for sale to faculty along Hilton Field Road at the same time it lays out the arboretum. What an opportunity!

East and North of the Green

The Thel sculpture is not mentioned, but it might be endangered:

Fairchild Field
A new shared surface for cars, pedestrians, and bikes, in lieu of a vehicular access road, creates better pedestrian connections between the Physical Sciences Complex and the Historic Core.

Anything that replaces the access road would be an improvement.

The plan devotes a great deal of attention to Fairchild Tower. It proposes a new interior stair and a bridge (to Wilder, presumably). Fairchild has always seemed a chilly, hollow signpost, but the illustrations in the plan remind us of how stylish it is.

Moving south across Wheelock Street, the big Vox Lane redevelopment image shows McKenzie and the Store House as not only preserved but expanded vertically into a “wellness” building — fantastic. That will be one of the most architecturally interesting buildings on campus. (This proposal was not included in an August presentation image and thus seems to be a recent inspiration.)

South of the Store House is shown a parking garage on the FO&M corner. Fine, but one hopes that it will have retail uses on the ground level. It could make for a neat visitor entry to campus: you drive to town, park in the garage, follow the signs to the back door of Wilson Hall — the new admissions office, in this plan — and when you embark on your campus tour and pass through Wilson’s great arch you see the Green laid out before you.

It is good to see the athletics promenade alongside Leverone (page 52). And Piazza Nervi is on the map, described this way:

Park St Gateway
A gracious gateway to athletics and the campus visually connects the Leverone Fieldhouse and Thompson Arena, both historic modernist structures designed by Pier Luigi Nervi.

That “gateway” project would move the two houses currently blocking the view of Thompson Arena and, interestingly, would add a roadway in front of Thompson. Clever: lining a lawn with streets sets it off as a public space, a public green.

North Campus

The architects’ image of a Maynard Street Green on page 45 looks like a Currier and Ives print.

The plan mentions the possibility of moving all existing uses out of the Rope Ferry Road buildings and turning the buildings into graduate dorms. Interesting! But wait, do they mean vacating Dick’s House too? They do, apparently — which would be too bad. Would there be any infirmary on campus, or have student health services become a collection of vending machines? Presumably the infirmary would go to the “wellness” building at McKenzie. If that is what it takes to save McKenzie, then so be it.

And beyond: Land banks on Lyme Road

The new buildings north of the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center are a great start, and there could be many more here. Dewey Lot has so much space, as stated in the report, and so much potential. The depression here creates a fantastic opportunity for an extensive below-grade parking deck. As stated on this site in the past, however, the functions placed here should not be college-related. This is no more a part of the campus than is the CVS (Grand Union) building, and college ownership of this site does not change that fact.

Moving up along Lyme Road outside of town: The two alternative land bank locations labeled “Site 1” will inevitably be suburban and oriented to Lyme Road, notwithstanding the plan’s idealism about self-driving cars. They really will have parking lots, because they will become office parks and convenience stores. As far as the choice between near and far, the farther site, next to the fire station, seems preferable. There is less chance that it will contain anything that undergraduates would need to visit.

More on the two locations of Geisel, the Grand Limited-Access Road, and the rest of the plan in a future post.

The end of the Hanover Country Club

Posted on 13.07.2020 by Regisseur

Along with ending five varsity sports, the college is closing the Hanover Country Club after nearly 125 years (see the announcement, which features another great Burakian aerial; see also the more detailed Hanlon message and the FAQ).

The golf course has been thought of as a land bank, a reserve for future development, for decades. A thorough college planning process can be expected before anything is built on the golf course.

Here are some suggestions for the plan:

The historic clubhouse, a 19th-century barn that was extensively remodeled by Professor Homer Eaton Keyes in 1916 and 1917 (a post here), should be preserved, ideally on its current site. It could be expanded and turned into a dwelling.
If the golf course is going to be developed, it should be developed thoroughly. Piecemeal scatterings of parking lots and isolated buildings will only draw suburban sprawl closer to Hanover (a concern expressed in a 2008 post here). The college should plan for an all-encompassing, long-term project that reserves important natural areas, establishes a street grid, and envisions buildings surrounding walkable public spaces.
More to the point, the development should be urban, not campus-like. The golf course lies outside the 10-minute walking radius of the college, and none of the buildings built there should contain spaces for instruction or student dining or living. These should be mixed-use commercial buildings like the ones found in Hanover’s first downtown, South Main Street. That is the idea presented in a 2012 post here that featured this image:
One exception to the no-campus guideline might be made for a new business school campus. Professional schools are located at the edges of the college, and the Tuck School has looked in the past at new sites along Lyme Road — which is too far away. A new Tuck campus beginning behind the Life Sciences Center and extending up into the golf course could be impressive. Thayer School might be happy to take over the old Tuck buildings.
While commercial buildings extend northward along Lyme Road, what kind of construction should the college promote on old Hilton Field, the area beyond the DOC House and the Clubhouse? To bring some income, provide needed housing for academic families, and appease the existing neighbors, the college might want to consider building houses here in the character of the historic neighborhood.

Hell Gate Cabin burns, and other news

Posted on 21.11.2019 by Regisseur

Valley News reports that the 1974 Hell Gate Gorge Cabin in the Grant burned to the ground this week.
A Dartmouth News story profiles the Band; at the recent Yankee Stadium football game against Princeton, the marching bands of the two schools combined for a halftime performance.
Construction on the Irving began in October and will involve the demolition of the northeast corner of Murdough. The current rendering of the interior atrium of Irving is labeled “no beehive.” Presumably the beehive is the stepped hemispherical-roofed conference room (?) that dominated the lower left corner of earlier renderings. Presumably the roof is just omitted from the rendering rather than dropped from the design; the boat-hull jetty on the left side of the stair looks like the base of the beehive.
Valley News reports that DHMC has submitted its expansion plans to the Town of Lebanon; the hospital is going with a bigger parking lot by Jesse’s rather than a multilevel parking deck.
Ledyard Canoe Club is celebrating its centennial.
There are more twists and turns in the story of the plans for the new heating plant (Dartmouth News). The college seems to be looking at options other than a biomass plant.
VTDigger has an article on petroglyphs in Brattleboro submerged since 1909.

Boathouse addition finished, and other items

Posted on 06.10.2019 by Regisseur

There are Dartmouth News items on Vox Croo, the special DOC Trips unit (also photos) and the Warner Bentley bust.
The addition to the rowing boathouse has been completed and dedicated (see also the Call to Lead item).
Other new building items: The Dana transformation continues, and the Indoor Practice Facility update page includes a rendering of the building’s lobby.
Greg Fennell in the Valley News discusses the fact that Dartmouth football is not on radio for first time in decades. Good old WDCR (on line) and the EBA’s ads are missed.
A Valley News story picks up on the hesitation expressed by the college (in its announcement of the latest board meeting) to build the new heating plant as a biomass plant.
Valley News also has articles on the student-research historical accountability project and the visit of the tenth Earl of Dartmouth.

College floats three sites for the new heating plant

Posted on 30.06.2019 by Regisseur

First, the most important news: The college “will be decommissioning the current power plant, removing the stack and repurposing the building” (Planning Board Meeting Minutes 5 February 2019 pdf). That is reassuring. Naturally one would love to see the landmark 1958 stack retained as well and repurposed as a memorial column or a pedestal for public art, but we will take what we can get.

At a public meeting last month, the college revealed the three places that are in the running to become the site of the replacement heating plant (Valley News 22 May, Dartmouth News, The Dartmouth). The sites are:

1. The hill behind the Dewey parking lot, east of Rope Ferry Road and Occom Pond. This would not be the first power plant in the neighborhood, of course: the MHMH plant had a tall smokestack and stood in the parking lot behind 5 Rope Ferry Road (roughly behind the red BMW in this photo from Google Street View):

2. A site along Lyme Road by the Hanover Country Club’s maintenance facility garage at the south end of the golf course. This is the best we can do on Street View:

3. The third location is the former home of Trumbull-Nelson Construction Co., next to the Hanover Public Works Department, on Route 120.

The third option is the most distant and seems to be the only one that would not require trucks full of wood chips to drive through the center of town several times a day. That site would require a lengthy insulated underground pipeline to link up with the existing steam tunnel and pipe network, however. The pipeline can be no more than two miles long if it is to be efficient (Planning Board pdf). According to the map above, the route to the T-N site is about 1.6 miles, following roadways.

Because of its distance from campus and the possibility that it would keep some trucks out of town, the favorite site among the public seems to be the T-N site (Valley News 23 May).

A BASIC historical marker

Posted on 24.06.2019 by Regisseur

The Alumni Council minutes of May 17, 2019 describe an overview of the master plan provided by Director of Campus Planning Joanna Whitcomb. The master plan site welcomes comments; it sounds like the process is moving along, and the next steps include the development of draft principles. Dartmouth’s house system still awaits its Edward Harkness.
The DOC House, on Occom Pond, is being renovated to designs by Randall T. Mudge & Associates.
Concord Monitor columnist David Brooks has been proposing tech-related historical markers for New Hampshire highways, and now the state has taken him up on the idea, placing a marker near the college to recognize the creation of BASIC. This page at this site proposed a similar set of markers for the sites of Kiewit and Bradley-Gerry back in 1999; the state’s BASIC marker, which is required to stand alongside a state highway, lacks the clever gimmick of teaching the reader a little BASIC.
The Dartmouth Hall renovation is finally being started, with Boston architects designLAB signed up. It’s worth reiterating that the building was completed in 1906 and extensively renovated in the 1930s.
Big firm Einhorn Yaffee Prescott is designing a renovation of Reed Hall, and similar renovations are planned for Thornton in 2020-2021.
Trumbull-Nelson sold its headquarters on Route 120 to the college in 2008 and has now moved to a new site down the hill from the airport in West Lebanon (Valley News). The Route 120 site had served as a hog farm in some previous incarnation (Valley News).
A guide to the improvements coming to the Tuck campus mentions some projects that will connect the Tuck campus to the new Irving Institute building fronting Murdough.
The idea behind the manifestly fake quotation attributed to Lincoln (see this post) seems to be spreading. Now the statement that “A nation that forgets its past has no future” is attributed to Churchill, in this Virginia sign (by the Patrick Henry Tea Party). Online searches of Churchill’s writings and speeches have so far failed to turn up evidence that he ever said that.

New building projects and other topics

Posted on 18.05.2019 by Regisseur

The Valley News has an article on the 50th anniversary of the Parkhurst takeover.
The DOC House at the head of Occom Pond is going to be renovated when there are enough donations.
The Library is working with Russell Scott Steedle & Capone Architects, Inc., to design a new off-site storage facility:

Dartmouth plans to build a 20,000 sq ft stand-alone, purpose-built storage facility to house the library’s low-use print collections and College records. This facility, to be located on Dartmouth’s 56 Etna Road property in Lebanon, will replace the existing Library offsite storage facility[,] which is full.
An article in The Dartmouth details progress on the Indoor Practice Facility (this is the controversial project in the Sunken Garden) and Campus Services has information on the progress of the Boathouse addition.
The year the bookstore died: Earlier this year, both the Dartmouth Bookstore (ca. 1872) and Wheelock Books (1993) closed up.
Now that the Dartmouth Bookstore is gone, the Gitsis Building is being heavily renovated, the Dartmouth reports:

The building’s owner, Jay Campion, said that the renovations are already well underway and should be complete by July, which will allow the three tenants to start setting up their shops. According to Campion, the renovation process has involved a complete makeover.

“We’ll be rebuilding the entire storefront and have basically gutted the building,” Campion said. “We’re re-insulating and replacing the heating and air conditioning systems for this and dividing the space for the three separate tenants on the first floor.”
This public domain collection of images from the National Archives has an interesting group of photos of campus during WWI. Most of them show the trenches that were dug behind the gym, presumably where Leverone stands today. This photo shows a group of cars and trucks parked inside the southeast (or possibly northwest) corner of the gymnasium itself.
Another new project: Renovations of the bluestone plaza in front of the Hopkins Center. The paving stones will be replaced with concrete pavers.
Wilson Architects have posted an updated flythrough of the Thayer/CS Building. Now it is clear that the retaining wall to the west is actually the entrance to the garage; in this rendering, it is just vegetated rather than topped by a parapet and walkway.
Not sure whether the new Planning, Design and Construction website has been mentioned here.
In this Street View the Google employee with his camera backpack is reflected in the windows of Berry Library — as he walks through campus tour group.
This post at Granite Geek solves the mystery of whether the NHDHR database called EMMIT is a reference to the derogatory student term “Emmit,” meaning a local person (or really, a New Hampshireman, not so much a townie). The answer is no.
Lawrence Biemiller has a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Ed called “Make Way for Trenches! A College Plans to Scrap Its Entire Heating System.” It has good information on the upcoming heat plant and steam-to-water transition projects.
When the new biomass plant is completed, the college will decommission the old heating plant behind New Hampshire Hall. Then it will have an empty building, historic and full of character and eminently reusable, right in the middle of the Arts District. The current feeling seems to be that the building will be demolished, along with its landmark smokestack. Here’s hoping that either or both can be saved, and if they are to be destroyed, at least they can be thoroughly documented first. The University of Virginia is doing the right thing by scanning University Hall, a 1965 domed concrete basketball arena.
The Anthropology Department is leading n archeological aexcavation of an 18th-century house site on campus. That’s fantastic. It’s a pity that no one was doing this in the 1930s (or even the late 1980s, before the construction of the steam tunnel disturbed the east side of the Green).
Unrelated: A week and a half ago, Union Pacific 4014, a 1940s steam locomotive with a 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement, was brought back to life. Having seen a couple of Big Boys in impossibly derelict condition in Colorado and Wyoming in my youth, I never thought one of these locomotives would run again. Here’s a film of the colossus, double-headed with UP 844 (a 4-8-4): Film by Jaw Tooth. Here’s another clip by airrailimages. Astonishing.

Master planning picks up steam

Posted on 17.05.2019 by Regisseur

The master planning site is now seeking comments.

An article in The Dartmouth on the first master planning town hall meeting has this to say:

The Golf Course: “The Hanover Country Club could also be repurposed in the plan, as it is ‘losing a significant amount of money,’ Moore said. He added that the Hanover Country Club will continue to operate as a golf course through 2020. However, its fate after 2020 will be determined by the master plan. Other land that could be repurposed includes Lewiston Lot, an area on the Vermont side of Ledyard Bridge that currently operates as a parking lot.”
Rivercrest: “Graduate student housing was also mentioned several times during the town hall. The Rivercrest property, located north of the Hanover Country Club, is one of the areas being considered for future graduate student housing, Moore said.”

An article on the master plan in the Valley News has lots of interesting tidbits:

The history of master planning: “The development of a new master plan was started in 2012 but was never completed nor was a draft made available to the public following the departure of then-Dartmouth president Jim Yong Kim.”
The possible (palatial?) Country Club: “One possibility for the future of the Hanover Country Club is the addition of a new clubhouse on Lyme Road. Keniston confirmed that a group of Tuck students are currently evaluating the financial viability of such a venue.”
Locations for third-party grad student housing: “According to Keniston, $500,000 has been approved for a private developer to build 250 beds either at 401 Mount Support Road or Sachem Village, which already houses graduate students.” See also the later Valley News story on the invitation for proposals.
The new heat plant: “As for the future location of a proposed Dartmouth biomass plant, Keniston said the technical analysis is almost complete to announce two to four potential sites. A community forum will be held mid-May to solicit feedback on the locations from local residents.”

Here’s a scoop from a recent piece by D. Maurice Kreis¹D. Maurice Kreis, “On the Dartmouth Green, Art and Architecture Make their Stand,” InDepthNH.org (9 February 2019). about the new Hood:

Showing off the expansion and renovation designed by the world-renowned New York architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, Stomberg casually mentioned that the Hood opted to stick with its existing location at the center of campus rather than move to a more distant spot that had been offered, which he characterized as being near the Connecticut River.

Instead, Stomberg said, that’s where Dartmouth will put the new central heating plant it recently announced plans to construct so as to stop burning oil and start burning sustainably harvested wood.

That’s interesting. A site by the River? Could it be Rivercrest? Now that we know that grad student housing will be built in Lebanon, could Rivercrest be on the list of sites for the heating plant? Rivercrest is the next development along the River after CRREL:

—————————–

 [+]

References
↑1	D. Maurice Kreis, “On the Dartmouth Green, Art and Architecture Make their Stand,” InDepthNH.org (9 February 2019).

Various construction topics

Posted on 23.03.2019 by Regisseur

An Architectural Digest story on the Hood by Elizabeth Fazzare again refers to a gray brick supposedly used in the original building, this time stating that it was used in the iconic trabeated gateway. The gateway was made of concrete, however; Moore originally intended it to be of granite.
The Indoor Practice Facility weekly update includes an aerial image showing the building’s footprint.
Van Zelm Engineers, a firm that worked on the 1978 Life Sciences Center and has built some very interesting heating plants over the years, are working on the Irving Institute. Their project page shows a basic footprint for the Institute for the first time: it really is a screen building. The college project page now includes renderings of the side facades and a new interior view.
A flythrough video of the Thayer/CS building by Wilson Architects suggests that the complex will have quite a retaining wall on the west side; one hopes it’s made into “engineering” or at least faced in granite.
The Thayer School Parking Garage project page has some cute computer images of various stages of future excavation. Turner Construction has a camera on MacLean showing the construction site.
Campus Services reports on a project to remove diseased trees from Pine Park.
High-Profile and North Branch Construction have information on the renovation of Blunt into an academic building.
The Dana renovation remains an interesting project. There is a video flythrough at the Leers Weinzapfel Associates site, and it shows a little pedestrian bridge on the west side of the building. A glimpse of the building’s lobby shows the Guarini shield on an office door and a “graduate lounge” occupying a part of the building, possibly a holdover from the similarly-named space called for in the giant unbuilt dining commons that MRY and Bruner/Cott proposed for a site a few yards to the southwest. The glassy Dana frontispiece will be topped with a patio; the penthouse has a flat canopy roof that is covered in solar panels and almost gives the building the air of a pagoda.
Some Tuck Drive details from the July 3 minutes of the Planning Board (pdf):

The road is about half a mile long. He stated they will be working within the existing asphalt and drainage swales in order to maintain the existing stone walls. Lighting along the road will be minimal. Fixtures will be spaced 80-120 feet apart. Better access to the loading dock at Murdough will be provided. From Wheelock Street, Old Tuck Drive will be a two way street and give access to the Ledyard Parking Lot. After the turn off to the parking lot, the drive becomes a one way access. There is a pedestrian crossing point marked by a raised speed table. Guardrails will be installed along Old Tuck Drive. There is a bike lane separated from vehicle traffic by a double yellow line. Close to Tuck Drive there will be sidewalks on both sides of the drive.

[…]

Mr. Scherding stated the campus was open with busy streets and students were used to crossing streets and sharing roads. He stated the Director of Public Works suggested narrowing the road at pedestrian crossings to make it safer. Mr. Scherding said they talked about having a physical barrier between the vehicles and the bike lanes but currently it is not on the plans. ESMAY asked what the guardrail would look like. Mr. Scherding stated it would look like the existing granite bollards.
A report of the September trustees’ meeting describes a renovation project in which “the College intends to improve learning spaces throughout Dartmouth Hall to ensure that the building can meet the needs of faculty and students in the 21st century. As part of the planned construction, the College will restore some of the structure’s historic elements, overhaul the building’s systems, and upgrade its energy efficiency.”
Revision Energy has a page on its solar installations at the college. Some of the dormitory installations really do transform the appearance of the buildings.
Bruner/Cott has a page on its renovation of Baker Tower. The interior graffiti appear to have been removed.
The automated parking system of the UK Architects addition to the rear of the Bridgman Building is drawing some attention (ACPark.com, Parking-Net.com).
There is more news on the off-campus (or edge-of-campus?) heating plant project (Dartmouth News, The Dartmouth). Although a nice spot for it would be the Dewey Field parking lot (orange), my money’s on a few Lyme Road sites, shown in red:

Speculative map of potential heating plant sites

Whether to build on the Golf Course

Posted on 17.02.2018 by Regisseur

The college is looking at a “public-private partnership” — really just a private-private partnership, a form of outsourcing — to build a new biomass heating plant somewhere other than in downtown Hanover (Valley News). The college has also created a committee to study the future of the golf course (Valley News, Dartmouth News). The two efforts are directly related, as pages 12 and 14 of the 2002 college master plan (pdf) predicted:

“[T]he Golf Course is our land bank for beyond ten years[.]”
“[E]xpansion will likely be North of Dewey Field, into the Golf Course.”
“Golf course expansion has been contemplated for decades, and in the decades ahead will likely become a reality.”

New images of Thayer/CS building

Posted on 14.01.2018 by Regisseur

Rob Wolfe, “Other College Initiatives Under Examination,” Valley News (3 December 2017):

Mills also said at the meeting that officials were looking into establishing a public-private partnership to build a new biomass power plant, “essentially funding (the plant) without using our capital.”
Dartmouth’s 119-year-old power plant in the center of town currently burns No. 6 fuel oil, which is incompatible with college plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2025, and 80 percent by 2050.
Officials have said that a new biomass plant would not fit in the footprint of the current fuel oil plant off East Wheelock Street, but where that facility would go — assuming it’s ever commissioned — is still up in the air.
From the same article:

Public-private partnerships also may allow the school to build new graduate student housing, Mills said at the meeting. Graduate students living in college-owned apartments off North Park Street recently were displaced by an unusually large undergraduate first-year class, he noted, and this could help alleviate an existing space crunch.
Excellent photos and a thorough article on the new Ravine Lodge: Jim Collins, “Welcome to the Woods,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (January-February 2018).
A Valley News article on the College Park/Shattuck petition.
A college news release of November 5, 2017:

The board heard an update from KPMB Architects, designers of the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society building. The College intends for the building to be a hub of collaboration for students and faculty as Dartmouth works to produce the next generation of human-centered energy experts. Board members approved funding $6.5 million to complete the design phase, with a specific focus on modifications to the building’s exterior. The funding comes from gifts and capital renewal reserves.
Other capital projects were discussed, including ongoing renovations to Dana Hall and the Hood Museum of Art, site investigation work for additional undergraduate student housing, and preliminary design proposals for an enhanced rowing training facility.
New images of the Thayer School/Computer Science Building are out. These add detail to the images already released. It is hard to tell without a plan, but the Busytown sectional view seems to be looking west through a north-south slice?
The Valley News reports on a big new downtown addition to the rear of the Bridgman Building, designed by UK Architects.
A conceptual site plan of Kendal’s suburban 40-apartment expansion on the Rivercrest property.

Investiture and other topics

Posted on 13.06.2015 by Regisseur

The report of the 210th Alumni Council meeting updates us on plans underway to create a freestanding School of Graduate Studies that will coordinate the 17 Ph.D. programs and 12 Masters’ programs that exist alongside the professional degrees of the three professional schools. Grad Studies is now holding its first investiture ceremony (Dartmouth Now). The coat of arms was just the first step…
The Council meeting summary states that “[t]he College has also received sufficient donations to support the initial year of the new residential model of house communities.” That’s an interesting funding method; presumably in the long term the school will seek a naming gift for each Community. The funding element is not mentioned in the full report, although the need for heraldry (again) is foreshadowed:

House programming budgets will support a wide range of activities including “feeds,” intramurals, concerts, field trips, new annual traditions, alumni events, house swag, experiential learning, and leadership development activities.

Happy to see the term “feed” surviving.
It was a surprise to find last year that the famous Concord Coach that regularly carried the football team to the railroad station more than a century ago still existed (post). Now, courtesy of Time Well Kept: Selections from the Wells Fargo Corporate Archives, we learn that the coach of famous Hanover liveryman Ira Allen survives as well! From the book:

J.S. and E.A. Abbot and Company built coach #746 in the spring of 1864 for New Hampshire stage operator Ira B. Allen, who ordered his coach made two inches narrower and lighter than other typical nine-passenger coaches. Coach builders painted #746 dark green, a standard but seldom-chosen color requested by Allen, whose staging business in Hanover carried many students and visitors to Dartmouth College.

The coach, which is no longer painted green, is on display in Miami.
The Alumni Magazine in its May-June issue featured a number of historic photos of life at the college, carefully colored by Sanna Dullaway. The photo of the Golden Corner and watering trough, the tenth or so image, looks like it gets the color right.
The Big Green Alert continues to cover progress at Memorial Field, with photos on May 14, 20, and 22, and June 4.
Really intriguing things are going on with the proposal for a natural gas pipeline from Lebanon to the Heating Plant via DHMC (Valley News).
Received the latest campus map through email ahead of the reunion next weekend. It looks nice. It labels all of the sports fields and, possibly for the first time, labels the Softball Park and Burnham Pavilion (I thought that one was also unnamed as the Sports Pavilion?). It depicts the Lewiston buildings. It calls attention to the fact that the parking lot behind Thayer/53 Commons is still called “DDA Lot,” even though DDA became DDS a quarter-century ago. One does wish that the mapmakers would abbreviate the “Saint” in the names of the churches. And is the official name of the cemetery really the “Town of Hanover Cemetery,” when it was built on college-owned land and run by the Dartmouth Cemetery Association? Finally, one hopes that the roadway labeled “Old Tuck Drive” is not called that in practice. There is no “new” Tuck Drive to distinguish it from, and it’s the same as it ever was: Tuck Drive.
The Dartmouth reports on Tri-Delt’s decision to go local.
The website of Gamma Delta Chi documents the changes that the organization is making to its house, including an extensive set of alterations to the Pit.
The Valley News, reporting on the AD derecognition, quotes college spokeswoman Diana Lawrence:

“Students are free to join any organization that’s not recognized by the college,” she said, so as far as Dartmouth is concerned, “they can become Freemasons.”

In case you were wondering in 1799, “the Board of Trust declared itself in a decree that any student becoming a mason should thereby cease to be a member of College.”¹John King Lord, A History of Dartmouth College, 1815-1909 (Concord, N.H.: The Rumford Press, 1913 ), 520.
The Rauner blog has an interesting post on the ownership of the Green.
The voters of the Town defeated the West Wheelock Gateway District proposal (Valley News).

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References
↑1	John King Lord, A History of Dartmouth College, 1815-1909 (Concord, N.H.: The Rumford Press, 1913 ), 520.

Here’s to the Polka Dot; other topics

Posted on 04.05.2015 by Regisseur

The Valley News has an article with some superb photographs on the Polka Dot Restaurant by the tracks in White River Junction. The 1925 building seems to have hosted a diner from the beginning; owner Mary Shatney started working there in 1959 and had to close the place last year. It’s up for sale — let’s hope it remains a restaurant.
The Dartmouth Energy Program site is very impressive. In the history section, the excellent photo of the coal assistant seems to have been taken from the east end of the hall looking west. The narrow-gauge rails lead toward the coal hopper in the end of the building, now the site of the Hood Museum’s Bernstein Study-Storage Center. A couple of quibbles: first, “the good old days” actually began in 1770, not 1769; second, the timeline could mention the major addition of a second level to the building in 1922, apparently when the plant switched from coal to oil; and third, there’s something off about the wording of this sentence on the main page, however technically correct it might be: “While Dartmouth may be the smallest Ivy League university, we’re doing big things with energy efficiency.”
Excellent photo documentation of the construction of the West Stands continues at the Big Green Alert: April 24, April 23, April 22, April 19, April 18 (notable photos), April 8, April 7 (seating chart), March 23, and March 16.
The photo in the Valley News story on spring practice makes Memorial Field look as if it occupies an industrial wasteland. The runway at which Memorial Field’s concrete risers were stored for about six years, incidentally, was known as Miller Airport (Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields).
Victor Mair ’65 at Language Log takes on the word “schlump,” of “schlump season,” i.e. “mud season” (“breakup” in Alaska).
The Rauner Library Blog has interesting posts on the petition of Ledyard and others to be allowed to learn to dance and use the sword and a mysterious photo album called Along the Connecticut 1912.
The Watershed Studio website features several notable projects, including the Friends of Hanover Crew boathouse, the Organic Farm greenhouse, and a design for the replacement Ledyard Canoe Club.
Maybe the real test for the Residential Communities (a post here) will be the Commencement ceremony. Will the Communities be represented in the procession? The graduates will still have to march in alphabetical order, but will the House Professors carry the house emblems?
The West Wheelock Gateway District proposal is up for a vote and has been getting some press (Valley News, The Dartmouth). The VN story has this neat tidbit:

Around the corner from Anderson, William Smalley owns a small white house sandwiched between rental buildings mostly filled with Dartmouth students.

In an interview Monday at his home, where he has lived since 1938, Smalley said he welcomed the creation of the district and didn’t mind the parties the students occasionally threw.

“Somebody said to me, ‘How can you stand them?'” he said of the students, but “I’ve never had a problem with them — never.”
The college’s Flickr account has a neat and unusual view of Dartmouth Row, Ascutney, Richardson, and the Wilder addition. See the photo of the graffiti inside the Bartlett Tower roof. The structure does not look particularly original (1895) but there are graffiti from 1910 and 1915, so perhaps it is.
The Hanover Master Plan (pdf) contains a number of interesting tidbits, including this one: “The Town’s boundary stones and monuments are also historic landmarks. Most have the first letters of the adjacent towns incised in them.”
“In devising the plan of the library building, you have contemplated its indefinite extension to meet the growth of the collections,” said Mellen Chamberlain at the dedication of Wilson Hall as the school library (Google Books).
“Areas of potential historic interest include theoriginal center of Town; the well field of the old Aqueduct Company south of the Greensboro Road; the Granite Quarry south of Greensboro Road; the Tilton Quarry east of Moose Mountain Road and one of the earliest slate quarries on the old Tisdale property” (Hanover Master Plan pdf).
Finding churches that have been put to interesting new uses is just too easy, so further examples will not be added to the post here that arguing that Rollins should be turned into a library. There is a pub in a former church in Nottingham, England, and a brewery and pub in a former church in Pittsburgh, where a Romanesque nave makes an impressive beer hall.
The Hanover Master Plan (pdf) also recommends National Register listing for various districts including the campus.
This has probably been posted here before, but Yale has construction photos and a slick video of the two new residential colleges it is building.
The Dartmouth has an article on near-future construction projects.
Not much is coming out about Thayer School’s master plan. “Because the college owns Tuck Drive, any attempt to better align it with West Street will have to wait until Dartmouth’s own building plans in the area are finalized, she said” (referring to Vicki Smith, Hanover’s senior planner) (Valley News).

Building projects budgeted for; other news

Posted on 16.03.2015 by Regisseur

The Town budget includes funding for construction of walk/bike path along Lyme Road to the Reservoir Road roundabout. The paved path will be separated from the road by a tree lawn (The Dartmouth).
Tri-Kap appears finally to be tackling its Fuller Audit improvements, planning to erect an addition designed by Domus Custom Builders (Zoning Board minutes 22 January 2015 pdf).
Earlier this year, the Hood Quarterly reported that work on the museum’s addition and renovation would begin during the Spring of 2016.¹”Anonymous $10 Million Gift Will Transform Teaching at the Hood Museum of Art,” Hood Museum of Art Quarterly (Winter 2015), 10, available at http://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/docs/2015webreadyquarterly.pdf. The college trustees met last week and approved a capital budget that includes $8.5 million “for completion of design and preconstruction activities for the Hood Museum of Art renewal and expansion project” (Dartmouth Now). The Hood project, by Tod Williams Billie Tsien, “is being coordinated with a Hopkins Center for the Arts planning study” by Boora Architects.
Also in the new capital budget (Dartmouth Now) are:

– Funds for the planning and design of a restoration project for Baker Tower.

– “$11.75 million for design and construction of facilities related to initial work on the configuration of new residential housing communities.” That is likely work by Sasaki Associates, with the funding presumably going to build something less than the total number of dining-hall additions, faculty houses, or other “neighborhood” improvements the firm is proposing.

– “$100,000 for planning and conceptual design for the Ledyard Canoe Club replacement project.” The growth of mold in the clubhouse has sealed its fate; the designer of the replacement has not been named.

– “$200,000 for schematic design for renovation of Moosilauke Ravine Lodge.” After Maclay Architects studied the feasibility of preserving or replacing the Lodge, it was not known which route the board would take. Maclay even sketched a design for a possible replacement. Now it seems that the Lodge is going to be preserved.
The Planner’s Blog mentions that there are more than 42 types of bollard on campus. Almost as impressive is the fact that all the bollards have been cataloged and are being evaluated in a critical way.
Dartmouth Now has a nice post on the Book Arts Workshop in Baker.²Hannah Silverstein, “Book Arts Workshop: Hands-On Learning, Global Reach,” Dartmouth Now (25 February 2015), at
http://now.dartmouth.edu/2015/02/book-arts-workshop-hands-on-learning-global-reach/.
The feasibility study for that future Mass Row renovation was conducted a couple of years ago by Lawson Bell Architects.
Miller Chevrolet Cadillac, down on Route 120 not far from Fort Harry’s, has been sold, and its site is to be redeveloped:

Although Cicotte declined to identify the buyer, she said it wasn’t a hotel developer, Dartmouth College, or Hanover developer Jay Campion. The Miller Chevrolet Cadillac property, which is accessed on Labombard Road, is adjacent to the New Hampshire National Guard Armory on Heater Road. The property is also next to a planned hotel and conference center under review by Lebanon planning authorities, and near a natural gas depot under development by Campion.

One possible buyer mentioned is Dartmouth Coach, which has a facility on nearby Etna Road.

(Valley News). If I’m not mistaken, Miller is the dealership that eventually acquired Rodgers’ Garage, the REO/Packard/Chevrolet dealer on Lebanon Street where the VAC now stands.
That natural gas project is by Campion’s Valley Green Natural Gas, which plans to transfer gas from tanker trucks on Route 120 and then send it by pipeline to Hanover, particularly to Dartmouth (Valley News 18 May 2014, 4 November 2014). Dartmouth will finish analyzing a possible fuel switch this fall (Valley News).

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References
↑1	”Anonymous $10 Million Gift Will Transform Teaching at the Hood Museum of Art,” Hood Museum of Art Quarterly (Winter 2015), 10, available at http://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/docs/2015webreadyquarterly.pdf.
↑2	Hannah Silverstein, “Book Arts Workshop: Hands-On Learning, Global Reach,” Dartmouth Now (25 February 2015), at http://now.dartmouth.edu/2015/02/book-arts-workshop-hands-on-learning-global-reach/.

Neighborhood planning, other topics

Posted on 19.11.2014 by Regisseur

In 4 Currier, the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network Innovation Center and New Venture Incubator is operating (NHBR, via Dartmouth Now).
The extensive renovation has ended and Triangle House is now open (Dartmouth Now).
Amidon Jewelers is closing its store on Main Street, The Dartmouth notes. Amidon has been in town since 1935.
The College is looking at using natural gas or another fuel in the Heat Plant in place of No. 6 heating oil (The Dartmouth). It’s not clear that this move will lead to a new heating plant on Dewey Field, but there is always the possibility.
From Dartmouth Now, “neighborhoods” get a timeline:

The Board also discussed the ongoing planning and development of possible residential housing models that could be implemented beginning with the Class of 2019.
Dunc’s Mill, a Vermont rum distillery, displays on its building a rare matched set of Vermont windows (see the post here).
The Tucker Foundation is seeking comments on its split into religious and service groups (Dartmouth Now).
The Planner’s Blog has a post on induced demand for roads.
The Dartmouth has a general article on campus construction that says:

Gilman Hall, the now-closed former home of the biology department and proposed location for the academic center, will remain vacant for the foreseeable future, Hogarty said. Though the College investigated potential uses for the building over the summer, it did not decide on an immediate course of action. While housing was considered as one option, this would have been too expensive.

With Gilman on the road to weedy dereliction, somebody with FO&M needs to rescue those original lettered transom panels.
The Pine Park Association has a video of the construction of the new pedestrian bridge over Girl Brook.
Bruce at the Big Green Alert blog justifies his proposed name for the soon-to-be annual season-ending football game against Brown: The Tussle in the Woods.
There is some discussion of the Ravine Lodge demolition proposal at Views from the Top.
Waterfront New York: Images of the 1920s and ’30s is a new book of watercolor paintings by Aldren A. Watson, the Etna illustrator and writer who died in 2013 (Valley News, aldrenwatson.com). Watson might be familiar to readers from the trio of aerial sketches he did for The College on the Hill: A Dartmouth Chronicle (1965), precisely-delineated snapshots of Dartmouth in the 1770s, 1860s, and 1960s. The last of these is etched at a large scale on a glass partition in Six South.
There is a new football website (via Big Green Alert blog). In the Athletics > Ivy League section, the green “D” logo has mercifully shed its TM mark.

Perdido and more

Posted on 09.02.2014 by Regisseur

Jens Larson is on the cover of a Bucknell University magazine from 2009 (pdf). The cover story describes his 1932 master plan in the context of new plan by SBRA.
The roof of Alumni Gym over the Michael Pool is to be renovated again (The Dartmouth).
Clement Meadmore’s 1978 COR-TEN sculpture Perdido has been installed on East Wheelock Street below South Fayerweather Hall (Hood press release pdf, Flickr photo of installation, Facebook photo).
Collis renovations are nearing an end (The Dartmouth), and people are talking about switching fuels for the Heating Plant (The Dartmouth).
Bruce Wood discusses the possibility of a hockey game on the turf at Memorial Field (Big Green Alert blog).
Rauner presents interesting research on the conch that students blew as a horn instead of ringing a bell during the eighteenth century (Rauner Library Blog).
The Valley News has a remembrance of timber framer Edward Levin ’69.
Interior demolition soon will begin at 4 Currier, where the college is building a 3,000 s.f. innovation center (The Dartmouth).
Telemark Shortline, the sculpture now located in front of Richardson Hall, has an interesting past as described by the Hood Museum:

Telemark Shortline was originally designed by the artist for a specific site between the Hopkins Center and Wilson Hall on Dartmouth’s campus. When construction commenced on the Hood Museum of Art in 1982, the work was removed. In 2009, it was re-constituted by the artist in its current location. The first part of the title comes from the sculpture’s form, which resembles a deep-snow turn made with a pair of Nordic skis. “Shortline” refers to both the railroad company name (the sculpture’s composition brings to mind railroad tracks) and the artist’s term for the bevel-cut ends of his beams.
The post on traffic patterns around the Green has been updated.

Dartmo.

The Buildings of Dartmouth College

Category Archives: Heat Plant