Over the last decade, Dartmouth’s planners have concluded that the College must expand northward onto the Golf Course relatively soon. See, for example, the 2001 Master Plan, page 11 (pdf).

The latest 2001 plan tentatively suggests a location for the new road that would be required to make this expansion possible. The road would run from the Medical School/Dewey Field, cut through Dewey Hill, and head to the northwest to provide building sites on the very edge of — or actually on top of — the 17th hole of the Golf Course.

Rough compilation of maps suggesting route of golf course road north of Medical School, with potential building sites indicated by solid red dots; Baker at lower left

The buildings on this road would lie beyond the 10-minute walking radius that Dartmouth takes for granted as defining its pedestrian campus. The road, which would traverse fairly steep slopes, seems likely to go nowhere and to lack a connection to either Rope Ferry or Lyme Road. Because this development would focus on a paved thoroughfare instead of an architectural space, as all of Dartmouth’s most successful expansions do, it seems likely to be suburban in character — more Centerra than Tuck Mall.

Such an expansion would only seem inevitable if one were to begin with the premise that the existing campus is “full.” That premise cannot be accurate. Dartmouth should do everything possible to prevent it from becoming accurate. There are still plenty of places to add to existing buildings or erect new ones near the center of campus. Many of these sites contained buildings in the past or have been the subjects of building proposals dating to the 1920s:

Unsolicited master plan showing, roughly, sites to be built upon in preference to Golf Course; the only demolition required is in the Choates

Dartmouth should replicate existing densities before it expands in ways that are suburban, needlessly university-like, or simply cause the College to spread too far from the Green.

Trumbull-Nelson has demolished the old Co-Op Food Store and gas station at the intersection of Lyme and Reservoir Roads. The Co-Op is building a replacement on the site (more info) designed by UK Architects of Hanover; the minutes of the Planning Board (pdf) indicate that the landscape architects are ORW Landscape Architects & Planners of Norwich.

The new store, which will not contain a gas station, will face the traffic circle at the intersection and will complement Dartmouth’s Rivercrest redevelopment across Lyme Road, forming a part of what is in essence a new town north of the golf course.

The Office of Residential Life plans to renovate the ca. 1812 James C. Brown House at 26 East Wheelock as a sorority, The Dartmouth reports. A second building slated to become a sorority house is the Parkside Apartments, a Jens Larson faculty housing block at 17 East Wheelock Street. The firm doing the work is Haynes & Garthwaite.

Meanwhile, the status page for the 4 Currier Street project notes that the three frame buildings on the site have been demolished: 4 Currier Place, 6 Sargent Place, and an outbuilding at 18 South Street.

[Update 09.07.2008: Haynes & Garthwaite information added and Parkside Apartments substituted for Ledyard Apartments, named incorrectly in original post.]

Randall T. Mudge & Associates, Architects have created a firm website relatively recently. Familiar projects will include the Powerhouse Shopping Center in West Lebanon, David’s House at DHMC, and Dragon and the Rugby Clubhouse at Dartmouth.

Kessel-Duff notes in a projects list the 2007 construction of a Hanover Country Club Maintenance and Storage Building to the designs of Gardner Kilcoyne Architects. That seems a lot of sophistication to devote to a building that could be completely anonymous — is the information correct?

The owners of the last two working farms in the township have applied to Hanover’s Planning Board (minutes pdf) for permission to subdivide them.

The Visual Arts project page now has renderings available.

Now the public can see what so distressed some members of the College-formed committee of town advisors.

The building seems inoffensive. The entrances are glassy but the building is dominated by stone surfaces and reads as a solid mass from which openings have been punched, not as a Modernist affront to solidity and gravity. A blogger notes that the Norwegian slate ought to work well in Hanover’s climate. The building is not especially tall. It preserves what’s left of College Street and uses the former street to create a view of the Hood.

A Valley News editorial describes the building as “aggressively urban,” but it seems no more aggressive than Hanover’s other urban buildings, and far less hostile to Hanover than Spaulding Auditorium is. The Center’s entrance on Lebanon Street shows what Spaulding should have done. Perhaps this example will encourage Dartmouth to build an addition to Spaulding’s south and west facades containing offices, shops, and a true public entrance for the auditorium that leads to a full-sized theater lobby.

Detail of Lebanon Street entrance in south facade

One is gratified to see that, in preparation for naming Baker’s Catalogue Room after a donor, the fundraising website has changed its description of the redeveloped space from “Scholars’ Green” to “Main Hall.”

The 78 LSC has made an appearance on the architects’ website (go to projects > in progress > Life Science Center). The site states:

The site program includes the design of a new 300′ x 150′ Yard. The Yard serves as a multi-function exterior room and creates a new destination point at the northern extreme of campus. The Yard features native plant materials, a rain garden and storm water collection.

Photos of a model of the site are also available from the modelmaker.

The Berry Row landscape project, which focused on the bowl framed by Berry and Kemeny/Haldeman, has been completed. Photos from OPDC; initial design from Richard Burck Associates.