The vacant Dana Hall library building on Dartmouth College’s north campus was a 32,995-sf, 1960s building that became the anchor of the school’s north campus renewal plan. The building is being reimagined as a faculty and graduate student center.
Designed by Leers Weinzapfel Associates, the new building aspires for net zero energy use and will include new entrances for its surrounding buildings, a wide pedestrian bridge, and new circulation between buildings. The hope is the reimagined building will better connect the north campus to the green and main campus.
Rendering courtesy Leers Weinzapfel Associates.
See Also: Charles L. Tutt Library, Colorado College: Net-zero in the Rockies
An unused laboratory adjacent to Dana Hall will be demolished and an addition will be built in its place that houses the new building’s lobby and a cafe with a terrace overlooking a nearby green space. The renovated building’s upper floors will contain collegial faculty offices, classrooms, and places for student gathering. A penthouse level includes a solar paneled canopy and a south-facing planted terrace. In the basement there is a walk-out graduate student lounge that opens to a protected courtyard below a pedestrian bridge.
Rendering courtesy Leers Weinzapfel Associates.
Among the renovated buildings sustainability features are high R value terracotta-clad walls, solar panel canopy triple glazed windows, and south-facing glass with an expanded metal interlayer to limit summer sun. Before construction began, Dana Hall was stripped down to its concrete columns and slabs to remove existing hazardous materials.
The building is currently under construction and is slated to open for the 2020 Winter Term.
Related Stories
| Oct 13, 2010
Community college plans new campus building
Construction is moving along on Hudson County Community College’s North Hudson Campus Center in Union City, N.J. The seven-story, 92,000-sf building will be the first higher education facility in the city.
| Oct 12, 2010
University of Toledo, Memorial Field House
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Memorial Field House, once the lovely Collegiate Gothic (ca. 1933) centerpiece (along with neighboring University Hall) of the University of Toledo campus, took its share of abuse after a new athletic arena made it redundant, in 1976. The ultimate insult occurred when the ROTC used it as a paintball venue.
| Oct 12, 2010
Owen Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Officials at Michigan State University’s East Lansing Campus were concerned that Owen Hall, a mid-20th-century residence facility, was no longer attracting much interest from its target audience, graduate and international students.
| Oct 12, 2010
Cell and Genome Sciences Building, Farmington, Conn.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Administrators at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington didn’t think much of the 1970s building they planned to turn into the school’s Cell and Genome Sciences Building. It’s not that the former toxicology research facility was in such terrible shape, but the 117,800-sf structure had almost no windows and its interior was dark and chopped up.
| Oct 12, 2010
Full Steam Ahead for Sustainable Power Plant
An innovative restoration turns a historic but inoperable coal-burning steam plant into a modern, energy-efficient marvel at Duke University.
| Sep 16, 2010
Green recreation/wellness center targets physical, environmental health
The 151,000-sf recreation and wellness center at California State University’s Sacramento campus, called the WELL (for “wellness, education, leisure, lifestyle”), has a fitness center, café, indoor track, gymnasium, racquetball courts, educational and counseling space, the largest rock climbing wall in the CSU system.
| Sep 13, 2010
Community college police, parking structure targets LEED Platinum
The San Diego Community College District's $1.555 billion construction program continues with groundbreaking for a 6,000-sf police substation and an 828-space, four-story parking structure at San Diego Miramar College.
| Sep 13, 2010
Campus housing fosters community connection
A 600,000-sf complex on the University of Washington's Seattle campus will include four residence halls for 1,650 students and a 100-seat cafe, 8,000-sf grocery store, and conference center with 200-seat auditorium for both student and community use.
| Sep 13, 2010
Richmond living/learning complex targets LEED Silver
The 162,000-sf living/learning complex includes a residence hall with 122 units for 459 students with a study center on the ground level and communal and study spaces on each of the residential levels. The project is targeting LEED Silver.
| Sep 13, 2010
'A Model for the Entire Industry'
How a university and its Building Team forged a relationship with 'the toughest building authority in the country' to bring a replacement hospital in early and under budget.
