Dartmo.

The photo accompanying the press release on the recent pre-renovation dedication shows that the word THAYER has been replaced with the words CLASS OF 1953 COMMONS over the door of the building. (The inverted display of the Dartmouth flag is understood to indicate a beverage emergency.)

One of the biggest problems with Thayer seems to be that building’s kitchen gets extremely hot. The Dartmouth reported recently that a 250-ton air conditioning unit will be placed on the building’s roof in the upcoming renovation. Reed Construction Data lists Kieran Timberlake as the architects but seems to describe the earlier full-replacement project, notwithstanding the mere $500,000 cost projection.

The “Fuller Audits” of house compliance with town safety codes have led to a variety of responses over the past eight or so years, from Gamma Delta Chi’s minimal fire escape to the demolition of Sigma Phi Epsilon. (Phi Tau’s Fuller Audit played a role in its demolition as well.) Most organizations have added a bay or two to the end of the house to enclose a fire stair.

One of the most visible and insightful projects is the one recently completed by Zeta Psi (photos, more). Jens Larson’s firm designed the original house to face north toward Webster Avenue, away from the campus. Smith & Vansant Architects added a gabled portico to the rear, acknowledging the fact that most people approach from that direction.

Here it was under construction, from the Avenue side:

Rauner Library has provided a remarkable photo of the Butterfield Museum embraced in a death-hug by Baker Library. This is a view of the south and east facades of the east wing of Baker, looking to the northwest. The problem of Butterfield appears to have had a significant influence on the design of Baker.

See also the photos of the bells and the steel frame of the tower under construction.

With historic Clement Hall demolished (film and photos), the Visual Arts Center construction has been put out for bid.

Phi Delt reconstruction continues, The Dartmouth reports.

Engleberth Construction provides photos of the Tuck Living-Learning Center (Achtmeyer, Raether, and Pineau-Valencienne Halls).

It is not new, but Forever New: A 10-Year Report provides a comprehensive photo of the interior-block facades of Kemeny-Haldeman not available elsewhere.

The Dartmouth reports that the freestanding Class of 1953 Commons and the Thayer Dining Hall replacement, projects that have been on hold for about a year and a half, have both been canceled. The funds raised for 53 Commons will fund the renovation of the original Thayer Hall instead.

Dartmouth has frequently wrestled with the question of whether to have a single main dining hall or a widely-scattered group of two or more dining halls. Commons in College Hall was the only dining hall from 1901 to 1937, when Thayer Dining Hall opened. But Thayer was just across the street from Commons, and connected by a tunnel — the centrality remained.

Thayer Dining Hall

About ten years ago, Dartmouth decided to put a new dining hall at the north end of campus as the centerpiece of a group of new dormitories and a polar counterpart to Thayer (see the North Campus Master Plan). Moore Ruble Yudell with Bruner/Cott designed the building, which was to be called the Class of 1953 Dining Commons and can be seen in a series of sketches from the spring of 2007.

Detail of photo of model of 53 Commons, designed by Moore Ruble Yudell with Bruner/Cott, from 1953 Commons Sketches

This building and a temporary dining hall were to relieve pressure from Thayer so that Thayer could be demolished and replaced by a building designed by Kieran Timberlake. Known in the collegiate context for spare stone dormitories and a glass-walled dining hall at Middlebury, Kieran Timberlake considered renovating Thayer in its Basis of Design (November 3, 2006). The firm’s final proposal involved the complete replacement of Thayer with a new building set back from Mass Row.

Detail of planning alternate 1a from Kieran Timberlake Basis of Design

The firm produced preliminary designs (The Dartmouth) before Dartmouth put the project on hold in the spring or summer of 2008.

Some concern over what appeared to be the Thayer Replacement’s poor preservation practice was expressed here. So although one wishes the circumstances were otherwise, it is good to see that Thayer will survive. No mention has been made of who will handle the renovation, but judging from their stylish renovations of Davenport and Pierson Colleges at Yale, Kieran Timberlake could produce a very interesting design.

[Update 01.17.2010: Both the article in the D and the press release note that Thayer will be renamed the Class of 1953 Commons. The release also emphasizes the preservation aspect and notes that work will begin this summer and end in 2011.]

Now that the Spaulding Auditorium loading docks have been reconfigured (see the Google Street View of the construction — Hanover is now available in Street View, by the way), the Visual Arts Center can go ahead as planned. William A. Berry & Son, Inc. is managing the construction. The architects’ project page has not returned yet.

Brewster Hall has been demolished, and Clement Hall will be torn down during the first week in February (The Dartmouth).

The White River Junction railroad station is for sale. The sale site has photos and plans. The building is an approximate contemporary and formal cousin of Thayer Dining Hall, by the same firm, and can seem like an outpost of the campus for students arriving by rail.

Engineer Richard D. Kimball and his firm helped design Dartmouth’s Heating Plant and original network of steam pipes in the mid-1890s. It turns out that RDK Engineers is still around and claims that its project at Dartmouth was the first underground steam distribution system in the country.

The 2001 Arts Center Infrastructure Analysis (pdf) by Rogers Marvel with Ove Arup suggests that the heat plant eventually move to Dewey Field, north of the Medical School.  That would allow the Hood Museum or other arts functions to take over the old plant building.

Dartmouth announced the delay, which is the result of budget pressure. Small-scale upgrades will occur instead. The project page has more updates.

Theta Delta Chi is naming its addition to the north for Marc Fragge ’87. Several photos of the construction are available, including one showing the site in relation to Thayer Dining Hall’s west end. A November rendering of the addition shows the flanking walls lowered to reveal more clapboarding.

David Williams ’79 of Davis Brody Bond Aedas is the architect of the Tri-Kap renovation, The Dartmouth notes.

Zeta Psi has its own construction photos on line. This house is seeing some of the most extensive interior alteration of any Fuller Audit project.

The Dartmouth recently depicted Chi Gamma Epsilon with a roofed steel fire stair at its east end that looks like an incomplete Fuller Audit addition, but it is hard to tell.

Dartmouth has planned to replace the concrete stands that make up most of Memorial Field’s main western stand for some time. The recognizable brick arcading and memorial arch will remain. The OPDC recently put a plan (pdf) and front and rear elevation drawings (pdf) on the project’s web page.

The Fleck & Lewis design preserves the street facade of the Larson building, including the tall brick attic story added above the entry in the 1950s (?) to screen the press box. Low brick cheek walls that appear to be new will flank this attic story to screen the wider replacement press box, but they are imperceptible and improve the transition from the tower to the parapet.

The field facade includes a straightforward-seeming set of replacement concrete seat risers and a new, squatter-seeming press box. The press box appears more dignified than its predecessor: its roof seems lower, and its bottom level appears to rest on a lower seating level than the old box’s did. It is certainly broader. New stair towers flanking the box introduce brick into this historically concrete facade. Like the old box, the new one will be faced in green-painted panels.

The project also appears among landscape architects Saucier & Flynn’s works in progress, and the historic field was the subject of a recent “Ask Dartmouth” query.

Now that the economic collapse has depressed Dartmouth’s endowment (story in The Dartmouth), the school has put the Memorial Field project on hold for two to six weeks to determine whether to go forward, Provost Barry Scherr and Executive V.P. Adam Keller announced on the 13th. The other projects on hold are the Visual Arts Center and the Truex Cullins renovation of Buchanan Hall (story in The Dartmouth).

The updates page for the stands renovation (updated November 3) is still announcing the start of construction as November 17.

Although Dartmouth’s proposed acquisition of the high school would have deprived the town of an important element, it would have given the College a large tract of land very close to the campus. Part of the property was already in the form of sports fields, and the high school itself always seemed like it could make a good rugby clubhouse. The swap did not go through.

An unreleased proposal from a few years ago shows that someone was at least thinking of using the property for a new baseball field (putting something like Biondi Park there would have allowed Centerbrook to expand Alumni Gym) and, more interestingly, for faculty or graduate student housing. The ranks of buildings were to stand next to St. Denis Church.

Excerpt of plan from Bagnoli presentation

The plan appears in a 2007 presentation (pdf) by architect David Bagnoli of the Washington, D.C. firm of Cunningham | Quill and might have been created by that firm.

What is most remarkable about this plan is that it nearly replicates a housing development that once stood on the same site, the wartime Sachem Village (it was the precursor to the present Sachem Village). A nice aerial of this original Sachem Village appears on page 90 of Frank Barrett’s latest book, Early Dartmouth College and Downtown Hanover.

Thumbnail of portion of page 90 in Early Dartmouth College and Downtown Hanover

The post-Fuller Audit addition to Jens Larson’s Tri-Kap house is depicted in drawings now available in pdf. Smith & Vansant Architects designed the set of large, traditionally-detailed brick additions: a three-bay addition to the west, a one-bay addition to the east, replacing the original porch, and a covered porch on the front or south facade. Renderings of the expanded basement indicate that it can fit four pong tables.

The Dartmouth has an article on the completion of the construction of the landscape between Berry Library and Maynard Street following a design by Richard Burck Associates (select Works in Progress). The set of grass-topped concrete terraces originally specified was replaced by a less-formal grassy bowl.

Jens Larson’s main or western stand at Memorial Field is a concrete grandstand screened by a brick facade overlooking Lebanon Street. The Big Green Alert Blog reports that the previously-announced Memorial Field project (construction to begin October 2008, occupancy September 2009, according to the schedule pdf) is more than just a renovation of the structure: the school will demolish the entire concrete stand and replace it with a new one, leaving the brick facade in place.

This project will make the stand more accessible, more comfortable, and less capacious. The likely drop in seating capacity, continuing the trend of the Floren-motivated shrinking of the East Stand, might be desirable. The green-paneled press box, which seems to be from the 1950s and is the latest in a series of expanding press boxes, also will be replaced. The replacement could be a harmonious brick design that responds to Floren, and if Centerbrook has a hand in the project, this result seems especially likely.

Memorial Field’s original West Stand as viewed from the head of the field, by Davis Field House. The distinction between the concrete stand and the applied brick facade or screen is evident. The replacement press box will probably be much wider.

The stand’s center bay contains the only “interior” and the only portion past the street front that is worth saving. This vaulted passage is the site of the memorial element of Memorial Field.

The concrete stand itself is utilitarian and not in the best condition.

Dartmouth’s design office updated its complete list of projects in December (pdf). Renovations of New Hampshire Hall and the Inn are in the works, along with the creation or upgrading of a multipurpose sports field.

Dartmouth has also bought and is renovating the neighboring houses at 25 and 27 South Park Street and plans to rent each one to a sorority. Alpha Xi Delta will move from Webster Avenue, where it has rented the Beta Theta Pi House, and Alpha Phi will occupy a house for the first time, The Dartmouth reports. Both have been identified as designs of Jens Larson.

This is the front (west) facade of number 25.

This is number 27. To the right at number 29 is Fire & Skoal, also a Larson design.

The houses screen Thompson Arena.