Wieland (left) and King halls are Amherst's first newly built dormitories since 1986. |
New dorms debut, and old dorms reopen
Many students returning to campus in September were pleasantly surprised to find a striking upgrade in the quality of housing on campus. With the completion of the new King and Wieland dormitories and the renovation of North and South dormitories over the summer, the college has taken a major step forward in the Residential Master Plan, which aims to house all first-year students on the Main Quadrangle and to alleviate overcrowding, while improving the safety, function and comfort of the college’s residences.
The interiors of North and South have been completely renovated over the past 18 months, with new floor plans featuring large first-floor common rooms, handsome study lounges on each floor, and hallways and public areas designed to make the most of natural light. The buildings’ fireplaces and other distinctive features were retained, and original flooring was maintained for re-use in the lounges of the renovated structures. James Brassord, director of facilities planning and management, says that a priority was to create common space that would encourage interaction among residents. Each building now houses 61 students, primarily in one-room doubles. The exterior walls and roofs of North and South also were renovated, enhancing the historical qualities of the college’s oldest residence halls.
On the east side of campus, on the former site of Milliken Dormitory, the college’s newest residence halls, King and Wieland, manage to blend with Amherst’s older buildings while also feeling contemporary. In overall shape, the buildings echo the honest proportions of a New England barn, and their granite faces and sloping metal roofs reinforce that solid sense of tradition and place. (The gray granite exteriors are a direct nod to the gray granite of Barrett Hall.) But the subtle curve of the new buildings’ façades hints at the interiors’ modern sensibility. In each building there is a first-floor lounge that feels more Scandinavian than Northeastern, with a free-standing stone fireplace, granite floors, recessed lights, a wall of windows looking out over playing fields toward the Holyoke Range, and extensive use of blond wood—laminated bamboo from sustainable groves in China—for furniture and paneling.
The lounges’ clean lines and contrasting materials are carried through the rest of each building for an overall tone that is elegant, yet practical: The stairways are granite, and rooms offer abundant shelf space, as well as a long bamboo desk designed to accommodate computers and other electronic equipment while still providing surface space for writing and studying. First-floor rooms have extra-high ceilings, and each room has its own temperature control (although the buildings, like Amherst’s other dorms, are not air conditioned). Rakish bamboo window seats at each end of the hallways provide inviting study space. In addition, each floor has a lounge where students can gather to study, talk or hang out.
Senior Rachel Speer says that when she first saw the granite exterior of the new dorms, she thought, “Surely they’re going to cover that up.” But, she says, she has grown to like the look. She took to the interior of Wieland immediately, and was particularly pleased with her own room, which overlooks the Bird Sanctuary and the playing fields. “I love it,” she said. “It’s definitely the best room yet. I love all the desk space and the colors and all the storage. Excellent, excellent, excellent!”
Work continued this summer on other aspects of the Residential Master Plan. James and Stearns dormitories were razed immediately after Commencement, and by the opening of classes in September, the foundations and steel skeletons of the new James and Stearns were in place. The foundation and skeleton of the new Geology Building were erected over the summer, and work has continued on this site, behind Fayerweather, into the school year. Once the building is completed in spring 2006, the natural history collection will be moved from Charles Pratt, which will then be converted to a first-year dormitory. With Pratt’s completion in 2007, the college will be able to house the entire first-year class around the Main Quadrangle.
Among the other construction projects undertaken this summer were a repainting of the exterior of the Emily Dickinson Homestead, returning the home to its original ocher color scheme, and the installation of raised crosswalks on College Street.
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Photo: Frank Ward
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