Dartmo.

The Valley News reports that the outpatient surgery center (2008-2010) is going ahead but confirms that the Koop Medical Science Complex is on hold.

The November 13 letter from Barry Scherr and Adam Keller (pdf) stated: “We will complete planning already under way for projects which would then require additional financial resources before proceeding to the next phase: Class of 1953 Commons and the C. Everett Koop Medical Science Complex.” The three-part complex planned for the south end of the hospital is shown in a November 3, 2006 announcement and is explained in detail on its capital campaign page.

The Class of 1978 Life Sciences Building is taking the place of Strasenburgh Hall, a cramped Medical School office building. Strasenburgh was built as a dormitory, and for that reason it was the only building on the School’s “original” (1950-1980) campus not designed by SBRA: the dormitory, like its Tuck School counterpart Buchanan Hall, was designed by the consulting architects of the College, Campbell Aldrich & Nulty.

Dartmouth Medicine magazine (Winter 2006) has an article by Jennifer Durgin on Strasenburgh’s past, and it includes an excellent aerial photo of the medical campus. Strasenburgh’s small scale and busy faceting made it one of the least unappealing buildings of the group.

One of the new building groups out at the hospital is the Koop Center (SBRA, 2008-2010). See the floorplan (pdf). A view of the interior of the volume joining the center’s two wings, called LeBaron Commons, is available as well (pdf). One of the wings has a name that seems to be fairly new: the Williamson Translational Research Building.

For reference, this big addition seems to be at the bottom of the current hospital map (pdf).

A perspective drawing of the complex suggests the direction of the Medical School’s “Future Campus” (pdf).

Dartmouth’s steam tunnel continues to stretch northward. A thumbnail sketch:

• From Heating Plant along the Green to the Berry site (mid-1990s)
• From Berry site up Berry Row to Moore (around 1998)
• From Moore, tap into historic hospital tunnel network to reach Kellogg Auditorium and adjoining chiller plant (early 2000s?)
• From Kellogg, run northward behind Medical School to future Life Sciences Building site (2007).

More detailed plans and photos of a model of the Life Sciences Building are available. The building has a bit of the New Deal Post Office about it (see the Post Office of Old Chester, Pa.), while the gabled greenhouse gives it some of the feeling of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and thus Pope’s Scottish Rite Temple in Washington, D.C.

The OPDC’s updated Construction Maps show the north campus finally knitting together.

The Life Sciences Building looks like it will serve as a gateway building, form a wall defining two of the bounds of the campus, and partially enclose an informal quadrangle at the Medical School.

Trumbull-Nelson’s Constructive Images (Fall 2006 describes additions to Sachem Village and the renovation of Gilman Hall.

The Medical School will add two new wings to its LeBaron Commons in Lebanon, in association with the hospital: the new Koop Complex, designed by Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott, will comprise one wing for translational research and another for the Center for Evaluative Clinical Sciences (press release | fundraising announcement | building description).

Architecture critic Donald Maurice Kreis has a thorough review in Dartmouth Medicine of the most recent expansion of the DHMC, a massive 2002-2006 project. The article also includes several short videos.

In a speech to the faculty on October 31, President Wright announced: “I think we can confidently say that there has never been as much construction at any one time in our history.” Below is an excerpt from his speech as it relates to each future building project, with speculation about the architects added. In the context of architecture as a world art form, the most important project is the first listed here; the project that is most important to the school is listed second:

• “We are already in the planning stage for the visual arts center and will be continuing that process during the coming months.”
  –Designer: Machado & Silvetti

• “In the area of student life we are also in the final stages of planning a new dining hall north of campus, and a replacement dining hall at the current Thayer Dining site. The Class of 1953 has provided the funding for the north of Maynard Street facility, which will include space for graduate students. The dining projects will be staggered and will cause some disruption as we will need to complete the north of Maynard project before we begin at the Thayer site.”
  –Class of ’53 Dining Hall designer: presumably Moore Ruble Yudell
  –New Thayer Dining Hall designer: possibly Centerbrook

• “The Tuck School has plans for a living and learning center and they are moving forward with that aggressively. They already have most of the funding in place and are working on construction design, with the intent of starting construction during the second half of next year.”
  –Designer: Goody Clancy

• “The Medical School is moving ahead with their plans for a translational research building to be constructed near the hospital in Lebanon.”
  –Designer: possibly SBRA

• “The Grasse Road III project, currently before the town for approval, will provide more affordable housing than can be found in the local market.”
  –Designer: unknown, possibly William Rawn Associates

• “The life sciences building has been a challenge both in terms of fundraising and planning. Our original notion of a shared laboratory facility with the Medical School has evolved, and we are now thinking about a facility on the Hanover campus that will be primarily for the Biology Department, with only some classroom and meeting space for the Medical School. While this remains one of my very top priorities for fund raising, we are also looking at ways to use debt financing and internal resources to ensure that this project moves forward in a timely fashion.”
• “I have asked the Provost to review plans for renovation of the Dartmouth Row buildings and Carpenter Hall.”

DMS has finished its Doctors’ Office Building at DHMC and is planning LeBaron Commons.

Meanwhile DHMC has been adding new floors, a parking garage, a helicopter hangar, and other facilities in a $224 million expansion project.

The University of Virginia is preserving by moving its 1857 infirmary, now an Air Force R.O.T.C. headquarters, in part because of the building’s important association with medical history.   Dartmouth College destroyed its Medical School in 1963: the building had been used continuously for medical education since 1811 and was so important to the Medical School that it still appears on the school’s logo.