Mark Oribello's Division III - Building the Perfect Beast, A Construction History of Hampshire College

Building the Perfect Beast A Construction History of Hampshire College A Division III Project by Mark Oribello Table of Contents Acknowledgments i Preface 11 Chapter 1 In the Beginning 1 Chapter 2 Phase I Construction (1968 - 1970) 16 Chapter 3 House I &amp; II Residential (1968 - 1970) 30 Chapter 4 The Mods (1970 - 1973) 44 Chapter 5 Later Construction (1973 - ) 63 Chapter 6 Conclusion 82 Appendix A Construction Time Line Appendix B Bibliography AppendixC Interview with Charles Longsworth Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank the following people for their contributions to this project: To Susan Dayall, Hampshire College Archivist, for her time and unflagging efforts on the author's behalf, To Howard Paul, for his time and consideration in sharing his thoughts on Architecture at Ha ITI pshire, To Charles Longsworth, for his time in providing otherwise unattainable information, To Larry Archey and Bill Doherty of Hampshire College Physical Plant, for their time and efforts, To Earl Pope and Lori Scalatos, for their guidance and for finally passing this Division Ill, To the author's mother, for funding four years of meandering through college, To Richard Joslin of Smith College for his patience and understanding. Except where as noted, this work is the sole property of the author. No part of it may be reproduced electronically or otherwise without prior written permission from the author. Nasty things could happen. i Preface An architectural project is by nature a chaotic and frenzied thing; designers, construc- tion firms, architects, engineers, and, last but not least, the users of the proposed structure all have ideas and personal idiosyncrasies which affect the final form of the building. Yet, with luck and hard work, a building can rise to represent the program which founded it. Hampshire College, being a chaotic and frenzied thing unto itself, proved all the more difficult to build for. Research into this construction effort was equally jumbled. This work does not claim to be the definitive work on Hampshire, nor does it try to guess the true motivations behind Hampshire's planners. Rather, it attempts to shed some light on how and why Hampshire College was built; and provide some form of framework on construction there through the use of memos, letters, planning bulletins, and personal interviews. Hopefully this paper will be a beginning for other work in this direction as well as providing a source of history for the college. ii Chapter 1 In the Beginning... 1 Hampshire college 1S a small, liberal arts undergraduate school established in 1966. Hampshire's e d u c a - tional program is an experi- menting one, based in large part on a work written by its first president, Franklin Patterson, and first V1ce president, Charles Longsworth, in 1965. This book, The Mak- ing of a College, provided for a progrfuu in which students learned through independent critical analysis rather than traditional rote classwork. Classes would be small, less than 20 students to a class, with a faculty / student ratio of 1 to It was thought that such an intimate setup would foster 16. the kind of independent thinking that Patterson had hoped for. Hampshire remained an idea until 1963, when an alumni of Amherst college named Harold F Johnson offered to donate $6 million toward the foundation of a new college. Johnson had made a great deal of his fortune by speculating in the stock market and wished to donate some of this money to a worthwile cause. Having read the working paper for Hampshire College Johnson was extremely impressed by this proposed new direc- tion in education and decided to donate a sizable sum to the college. Envisioning the Hampshire Campus Hampshire College was intended to be a fully new and 2 different college rather than a retrofit of an existing col- lege. It was felt that a "clean slate" would enable the implementation of new ideals and programs as well as provide an education different from any other. Of prlmary importance for an architectural program, therefore, was a genuine sensi- tivity toward the revolutionary principles embodied by the college. "rrhe campus design should express in every possible way the distinctive social and educational character of Hamp- shire College. l " Knowing that HfuLlpshire's architecture would be a lasting statement Hampshire's planners were determined that the physical environment of Hampshire would respond to student's lives and academic needs vigorously. In a memo written by professor of history John Boettiger the sensitivity toward this unique campus' needs was made apparent. "In a sense, I suppose, Hampshire is building too early, before its collec- tive personality is manifest; but then the campus will grow with the college, and later buildings might reasonably be expected to take on more clearly - more integrally - the life of those who will give it character. 2 " Still, it was felt that certain factors could be taken as constants and others could be reasonably anticipated. Flexibility was important to the initial program; al- though the school had 300 students in its first class the college felt that in time that number could expand to over 3, 000 plus needed faculty and staff. Furthermore, because Hampshire's philosophy encouraged the development of new pro- 3 grams and fields of study it would ideally outgrow its first buildings. The ability to expand existing structures was seen as crucial because Hampshire could not afford to continuously engage in expensive construction of new buildings. outstanding difference between Hampshire and other An schools was the organization of fields of study into schools rather than departments. It was felt that interdisciplinary cooperation would be fostered by physical proximity. Origi- nally, a single structure or series of physically linked structures was envisioned 3 ; each of the four schools would have their own wings, each with academic offices, support staff, and classrooms. The COLLEGE. t-tAMP S H IR E administration would be r:-e.\M(:·W-o"!li. ""';o+;\"tVIN( t4%.~.;~, p'(...,c",l;'y C;?}(,P~rJ(, "';,,GI.H;M,"-'.IC A I .. "'" or: e-'( ,"~k;".JO~ ,ru~1tQ""4 --::"'J~'L;':J;';t.y-;;: 'trA.,ri!'f~ fJ:'i':..;.'o,r .... !~ ).,;'):.'VE" ,Vi, 'i.e I·~·' O'CU F',.rE'. housed ln a fifth wing, thereby enabling easy ac- cess to administration by students. At the center of these five wings would be the library and student services such as the book- ",--, ® store and coffee shop. I. flousf. " \ f VII I I I \..l-U In Patterson's original " .... - ,.; / ' plan each small section of ..-- .... " / / llouSE \ student living quarters \ IITl I / \ -._/ ...... was to be interspersed with academic buildings as ,;;E~r;~: .. -'!JtjUr~uff't ~n::l..£T -;'e:r o;.t,...t.:""" well as some amount of ....... - - -"'f..t:l:l!,!1 ... t:'-V,,..,:;a,f..r t W~ 4 facul ty housing. By bringing students into close physical proximity with faculty and academic areas the academic and social aspects of a students life would cease to be discrete entities. The governing idea behind this arrangement was not to force a student's academic life into a student's private life but rather to help the student to approach his work from a viewpoint more integrated with a "real world" perspective. Hugh Stubbins was chosen as the first architect for the school; Stubbins had previously planned and designed the South- west Quadrangle at the nearby University of Massachusetts as well as several buildings at Mount Holyoke College, including two new dormitory buildings. At the time Stubbins' firm was one of the foremost architectural firms for designing col- leges, having worked for such schools as the University of Chicago, Bowdoin College, and Harvard University (where Stubbins had previously worked under Walter Gropius teaching architec- ture). Much of the work Stubbins produced quickly became the standard for such buildings; a prime example is the Countway Medical Library at Harvard University in which a large, open atrium space allowed for numerous seating arrangements, af- fording either privacy or large meeting spaces. Stubbins' own personal philosophy of design meshed well with Hampshire's innovative ideals; as a professor of design Stubbins realized that Architecture as a profession did not stand alone. Rather, he reasoned, "Why shouldn't it auger well for the future if all these disciplines learn, in depth, at an early age, to work together, understand the strengths and 5 problems of each other's profession, and break down the bar- riers of negative attitude and misunderstanding that have so seriously hindered communication?"4 Further Planning By 1967 visi ts to other dormi tories had furnished Hampshire's administration with a working vocabulary for the plan for House I and II. Much of Patterson's original plan for intensely integrated living and academic quarters had been changing student oplnlon as to their needs I-lad impressed upon Hampshire the desire for student housing that would allow Hampshire to "recognize the legitimacy of the student's wishes and to accommodate them to the extent pos- sible by considering housing designed to be more private and more residential in character. 5n In fact the attitudes and desires of current college students became one of the foremost factors in deciding on a program for design of the students' houses. Hampshire College's founders felt that the academic program being presented de- manded a high level of maturity while offering a high amount of personal freedom. An individual who lS glven a high degree of personal responsibility and freedom In their personal life would demonstrate this maturity through their schoolwork. From previous visits to other schools and from interviews with students at other schools several facts were estab- lished. Singles were far more desirable than doubles or triples in that they offered more privacy as well as fostering a 6 greater sense of independence. Some amount of social space was deemed necessary as well although a shared social space such as a lounge or suite's living room was deemed more favorable than individual spaces set aside for entertaining. Further- more, a kitchenette and refrigerator was to be included in this social space so as to allow for greater flexibili ty within a student's daily life. Initially it was thought that four to six students sharing a social space would be most effective but it was later found that this number was not After Hampshire's initial land acquisition of 435 acres In South Amherst it became necessary to retain a landscape architect who would not only develop a plan for immediate construction but for long term planning as well. The firm of Sasaki, Dawson, Demay Associates was chosen and began work on the Hampshire campus in December of 1965. By July of the following year a site analysis had been prepared and was presented to Hampshire's board of trustees. In their opinion, " ... the site very well suited to the development of Hamp- lS shire College. The si te offers a handsome setting, prime building sites for economic development, good accessibility and an opportunity to plan rewarding community relationships ff6 One maj or physical factor that was discovered by Hampshire's surveyors was the fact that most of the land purchased by the school was glacial till with very few deposits of clay. What this meant was that the school's buildings could be set on 7 relatively inexpensive, commonplace foundations rather than elaborate pilings or other such systems. Furthermore, the area planned for the center sat atop a slight hill, aiding in drainage. A small area in the northeast corner of the campus was the exception in that it sat in a depression, causing the area to flood in the spring or during heavy rainstorms. It was suggested by Sasaki, Dawson, and Demay that no construction occur this area due to the extreme water and drainage ln problems; four years later House IV was placed on the spot. "h..-..,. ..,. ........ .,..,. _ _ For the rest of the construction pro- CfuupUS, J.J.uvVC:::VC.L I vided no major surprises. Most of the variance in construction techniques stemmed from design rather than engineering. Phase I construction was begun in late 1968 and by the end of 1969 Hampshire's first building, the House I Academic, was com- pleted. Not long there- after the Johnson Li- brary Center and Resi- dential House I were completed, the contrac- tors from Aquadro and Cerruti working through a long and snowy winter to complete the exteriors. Other construction had been taking place beforehand; sev- era1 existing farmhouses on campus were either razed or reno- vated to house the growing Hampshire College staff and fac- 8 ulty. In this endeavor Hampshire had little or no professional help; rather, the former owners of Hampshire's property chipped in and helped out, some repairing clapboarding, some painting offices right alongside Hampshire's new all purpose employ- ees, who would be administrative assistants to Charles Longsworth one day and Director of Personnel the next. In this way a small collection of outbuildings came to form a secondary center for the campus. Construction on the natural SClences building was com- pleted by the spring of 1970, just in time for new faculty to move in. Hampshire admitted its first class that fall, and as the students moved into their new housing they had the oppor- tunity to witness the construction of Hampshire's second House, Dakin. Dakin was completed in time to house Hampshire's second incoming class; an addition to House I Dining, completed just shortly after, provided seating for an additional 300 stu- dents at mealtime. Hampshire continued in its frenzied residential construc- tion pace for the next three years; the year after Dakin was completed House III, named Greenwich, rose up out of the northwest corner of the campus, along with dining facilities. The next year Enfield was dropped on a parcel of land that Sasaki, Dawson, and Demay called \\ ... poorly drained ... not prime building sites"7 The next year Hampshire abandoned the modular construc- tion technique that had worked so well for them in House III and IV and returned to more traditional building techniques. 9 Hampshire's final house was placed to the west of House I and II, completing the ring of houses around the central campus. Unfortunately the houses still remained somewhat iso- lated due in large part to the fact that Stubbin's original plan called for a much more aggressive and urbanized campus, with twice the number of students and buildings already on campus. Because there were so few buildings the campus was made up of small, separate clumps of structures with little of no connection to the other buildings around them. A further problem created by the uillque of each of the separate houses was a feeling of schism between the two dormitories and the mods; in the words of one professor, "This is not the result, we feel, of different living styles, but rather to an unfortunate geographic distribution which seems to divide the campus in two. This tends to set up a we-they relationship and a loss of contact ... that is further rein- forced by the difference ln architectural expression".8 Most of the major construction for Hampshire had been completed by 1973; plans for an athletic building were on the drafting table and the Trustees were considering a program for a Humani ties and Arts building but the maj or sections of Hampshire had already been delineated. Because the school had not chosen to complete Stubbins' master plan to its full scope it was left with only two buildings to "hold the hill,,9 Concern over this lack of focus at the most important part of campus became a major point in the program for the two remaining proposed buildings. If was hoped that these two 10 buildings would be able to help focus the circulation and relationship between students and the campus. With this in mind the firm of Ashley, Myer, and Smith produced plans for an athletic center directly to the east. The athletic center would be connected to the library via a bridge located on the second floor of the new complex. At the same time a solution was presented for the Humani- ties and Arts building which followed this same principle. The proposed building would be located across the library quad- rangle to the south of the athletic center. It was hoped that by placing the building in front of the quadrangle a sense of arrival could be created; at the time the loop road ended up either at the rear of buildings or at parking lots far removed ~Your from the centers of campus life. As one designer stated, choice, simply, is to arrive nowhere or outside. 10 Thanks to a generous donation from the Crown family the school was able to finance the construction of the athletic building; ground was broken in July, 1973 and fifteen months later the Robert Crown center was opened to Hampshire stu- dents, despite an ironworker's strike in August 1974. The spacious facility, designed by the New York firm of Davis, Brody, and Associ- ates, had a 75 foot long pool which could be opened to the outside via a large 'sliding door' contrivance, 11 staff offices, a climbing wall, and almost 10,000 square feet of gymnasium space usable for almost any sport. Furthermore, space had been provided overlooking both the swimming pool and gYm floor where students could congregate during their free time. Unfortunately the college was unable to ralse the funds for the Humanities and Arts building; government cutbacks, as well as a shortage of private donors, caused Hampshire to rethink their strategy for the new Humanities and Arts build- place at Hampshire's "front doorstep" they instead built a series of prefabricated warehouse shells immediately between Dakin House and Prescott (House V). In doing so they were able to use the bulk of their funds to fill out the insides of the spaces. Hampshire's latest academic building was completed ln 1989 and located within this "Arts Village". Adele Simmons Hall, named after Hampshire's third president, houses the school of Communications and Cognitive Sciences, Hampshire's youngest school. The school grew rapidly, originating as the Program in Language and Communications. The school incorpo- rated the field of Cognitive Studies in the early 1980's, one of the first undergraduate colleges in the country to do so. By the time they were to move into their new building they had also encompassed much of the computer science taught at the school. Unfortunately, by late 1974 Humanities and Arts was still, 12 In a sense, homeless. Professors were crowded in the natural and social sciences buildings with little or no room of their own for studios, lecture rooms, and gallery spaces. At the time the House III and IV dining building was sparsely used; many people living in the mods preferred to cook for them- selves and it was too far a walk for most people living in Merrill and Dakin. Thus the building was little more than a snack bar and was barely clearing costs. It was decided that the school would better benefit from using the space as of- fices and classrooms for the school of Hwuanities and Arts than the building's use. House V's dining hall, set up much like House III and IV's, could serve the needs of both houses. The space was vacated by SAGA, Inc. in 1976 and remodeled, creating two small theater spaces, several new classrooms, a design studio, and more faculty offices. No further new construction occurred until 1987, when a large tennis facility was erected to the southeast of Prescott house. Paid for largely by private donations this "tennis barn" was partly a Hampshire facility, partly a private tennis club. Members of the public wishing to play at Hampshire could buy memberships to the "Bay Road Tennis Club" and use hese facilities, which were also opened to Hampshire faculty, stu- dents, and staff. The Hampshire day care center was erted not long after- ward; this small, one story wood frame building was built for less than $300,000 in 1990. Hampshire had long recognized the importance of providing childcare for its employees. Prior to 13 construction of the facility the college had retrofitted a section of the Dakin basement into a child care area. Enroll- ment at Hampshire had ben low enough that the few rooms taken over by the child care center were not missed. It was soon realized, however, that the facilities in Dakin were neither appropriate nor feasable in the long run and the school allo- cated funds to build the structure which noew stands to the east of the Multisports center. footnotes: 1 The Making of a College, Patterson, Franklin and Longsworth, Charles, © 1975 The M.LT. Press, Cambridge, MA 2 Boettiger, john, in a memo to Charles Longsworth, May 19,1967. 3 Patterson, Franklin and Longsworth, Charles, The Making of a College, @ 1966 The M.LT. Press 4 Stubbins, Hugh, Architecture: The Design Experience, © 1976 john Wiley &amp; Sons, Inc., ~.9 Longsworth, Charles, from a memo to Mr. Stanley Snider, june 20, 1968 6 Galehouse, Richard F., In a memo to Charles Longsworth, july 1966 7 Sasaki, Dawson, and Demay, Master Plan Studies, Hampshire College, Site: Descrip- tion and Analysis, p.2 8 juster, Norton, and Pope, Earl, Planning Notes #1: August 29, 1972, p.3 9 Ibid 10 Ibid, p. 2 Picture Credits Page 1 View of Hampshire Campus Land before Construction from the northeast. Photography by Dick Fish. Archival photograph courtesy of Office of Public Relations Photographic Files, HC/Archives VP5. S6 #2 &amp; #3 Page 2 View of the Hampshire College Main Quadrangle from the northwest showing the college'sw of the Holyoke mountain range. Photgrapher unknown. Page 4 Schematic drawing of a suggestion for Hampshire College's physical layout. From The 14 Making of a College, by Franklin Patterson and Charles Longsworth, p. 202, © 1966 the Trustees of Hampshire College, M.LT. Press, Cambridge. Page 8 View of Phase I construction underway; House I Residential and Academic are largely completed, as is the Library building. Construction of the science building is just begin- ning. Archival photograph courtesy of Office of Public Relations Photographic Files, HC/ Archives VP5. 56 #2 &amp; #3 Page 11 Library Center and Robert Crown Center. Courtesy "Hampshire College's New Athletic Facility", Progressive Architecture, Feb. 1975 15 Chapter 2 Phase I Construction (1968 - 1970) 16 The Hampshire College Library was to be the centerpiece of the campus in many waysi not only was it to stand as the physical focal point for the campus but it was to contain services and resources essential to the life of the entire campus. It would not only contain the stacks and periodicals for the school but also function as a campus center for Hampshire, much like more traditional school's student unions. In Franklin Patterson's words this building would be, "a coherent, connected complex which in various ways would house the central facilities and central personnel of the College. Among other things, its underlying structural coherences are intended to accomplish economies in many kinds of operations .... This is asking a lot, but it is the kind of dense, variegated, "urban" mix that Hampshire College's distinctive character re- quires at the heart of its cam- pus. Even in his initial ,,1 explorations Franklin Patterson real- 17 ized that it was crucial that space was allotted for expanSlon of this central building. Not only would this space be neces- sary as the school's population increased, but it was felt that the future of libraries laid not in more shelf space but rather the ability to process information of all types. This is not to say that traditional methods of bookshelf storage and management were neglected. In the ini tial plan for the campus Sasaki, Dawson, and Demay allocated 119,970 square feet of space for library's needs. Ultimately this area was reduced In the interest of costs, and the entlre ...,,.-_..... ~ ; 11-;:~;::"..-.t'/! ~ 1;Jb1~--u...lj ~!: footprint of the .~ ~ building was scaled U back. To make opti- mum use of this space it was decided that most of the ordinary cataloging and processing duties ordinarily undertaken by the school would be contracted out to a private firm, thereby freeing up valuable floor space as well as the personnel needed for these tasks. With the elimination of these services it was still necessary to allocate two thirds of the building's space for open stacks; even so, Hampshire had room for only 18 110,000 volumes. The remalnlng one third of the library space was dedi- cated to an extremely ambitious and variegated selection of media and information transference system; it was, for in- stance, one of the few col- r Mechanical Room ~dii:ri,·.·./"·· I .! S~cial COllections I'i.i ",. Current 'I,! II Periodicies Ii 1 '; C---"';'\i ~ .' ; log. Furthermore, space was set aside for 50,000 microfilms, 600 periodicals, and 10,000 non print items 2 such as records, movies, etc. It was recog- nized that in the area of non traditional media the opportu- nity for expansion was most important. "Because of the dynam- lCS of communications technology, libraries must be designed and operated so that they are more adaptable to change than they are now. We do not know what demands will be made on the library in ten or twenty years, but we do know that they will 19 be different than they are to- day. By 1990, it is likely, for example, that the excellence of the academic library will not be measured by the extent and quan- tity of its collections but rather by the capabilities of its in- formation processing system ... " 3 Although the space normally needed for receiving and cata- loging of materials was saved by contracting these duties out there still remained a great many services needing locations. Furthermore, many of these ser- vices had very specialized needs. One example is the space allocated for the school's computer needs. At the time, a computer was not only a monolithic series of machines, tape bundles, and keypunch stations but also necessitated large air cooling machinery, dehumidifiers, power regulators, and other environmental control apparatus. Thus, the space dedi- cated to a mainframe computer was substantial, and required complex manipulation of HVAC systems, electronics knowledge, and, most importantly, a thorough knowledge of structural principles. The task was made all the more difficult because the future of computer technology was uncertain at best and educated guesses were perhaps the closest estimates of future expansion needs. 20 When determining the choice of a site for the library its role in the community was carefully considered. As the center- piece of the campus it was essential that it not only occupy an easily accessible site but that it also stood in a promi- nent and symbolic area. By doing so it would establish the central area f the campus 0 physically as well as providing a landmark for visitors to the campus. To do so the building would by necessi ty be visually accessible from the main drive as well as being connected at some point to the loop road. Soil analysis had shown that Hampshire'S land rested in what had once been a glacial lake and that almost all of the land was glacial till with very little loose clay. Further- more, drainage for most of the campus was good enough that no special construction techniques were necessary. Stubbins was therefore free to place the library almost anywhere. The trustees of Hampshire College realized that many of the school's central facilities would be located in this library and were careful to ask Stubbins for a "College Center, with maj or facilities and variegated campus - wide services and opportu- 21 nities efficiently but interestingly centralized .. As "4 Patterson had previously stated the importance of the college's library as a student center the library building was placed in the center of the college's property and at the center of the school's construction by Hugh Stubbins in his master plan. The choice of poured in place concrete was influenced by several factors; first, Stubbins had already demonstrated an affection for concrete It forms as they celebrated his "deep respect for function"s. In the ex- posed concrete forms of his buildings he communicated the idea that "Structure ... should be forthright ... honest,,6 Another contributing factor in the choice of building materials was cost. Hampshire was not nearly so well endowed as its contemporaries and its desire for a flexible and easily expanded space demanded that a significant portion of its resources went toward producing a design that would allow for this. Poured in place concrete was far less expensive than other, traditional building materials such as steel or wood, especially considering the extreme load to be placed on it. Furthermore, the cost of forms constitutes almost 40% of construction costs; Stubbins' repeated forms, exposed beams, and rectilinear shapes allowed for the repeated use of stock forms and therefore aided in keeping construction costs low. 22 Despite all this the library was a massive undertaking, financially. Several large private donations in addition to part of Robert Johnson's initial gift were necessary to com- plete the building. When finished the building held enough space for several video and photography studios, a large computer space, the school bookstore, several non library staff offices, an art gallery (with requisite storage spaces), the school's post office, a student lounge, a duplications center, facilities for movie viewing, and one all purpose room later nicknfulled the "kiva". This, in addition to the afo:cernen- tioned open stacks, reserve materials, microfiche, non print items, and support staff offices, became the centerpiece of the school. Longsworth's The Making of a College called for a highly integrated system of student and faculty housing combined with academic and leisure space. It was felt that this highly intimate atmosphere would allow for a much higher level of faculty involvement within the community and also create in- formal interaction between faculty and students. Stubbins' initial plan for the campus separated most of these offices from the student houses they were to originally occupy and placed them in discreet buildings - the Cole Sci- ences center and Franklin Patterson Hall. As with much of the design process at Hampshire there was a great deal of discus- sion regarding this; some felt that the integration of faculty and student areas was unnecessary because "faculty offices would not be at too great a distance from the student living 23 quarters to provide any obstacle for a student intending to visit a faculty member. Some argued that the vicinity of "7 facul ty offices was not as important as the potential for "accidental encounters between faculty and students"8 A further concern dealt with the physical building and traffic patterns faculty offices placed in student housing buildings would create. Some felt that these buildings would become far too large to be easily manageable. Furthermore, they reasoned, even though increased pedestrian traffic in these areas would encourage more student interaction it would also destroy much of the privacy in the residence areas. Franklin Patterson Hall, originally House I Academic, was to have been the first of a series of decentralized academic facilities. Each house would have its own academic building which would encompass teaching, lab, and office space. It was thought that perhaps each house would come to associate itself wi th a particular school, i. e., Humanities and Arts, etc., and much debate was heard from both sides. Although the working paper provided an outline for needed facilities for each academic building it was felt that House I Academic should be equipped with as many facilities as possible ln order to accommodate Hampshire's first incoming classes. Thus, al- though small classes were anticipated, a large lecture room was deemed especially important as no other large space ex- isted on campus. Two slightly smaller lecture halls were also provided to accommodate the occasional large class or small scale visi ting lecturer. The rooms, as with much of Hampshire's 24 other architecture, were intended to be as flexible as pos- sible, and to this end one of the two smaller lecture rooms was not furnished with fixed chairs and desks. As Hampshire's first academic building as well as part of the house module a high level of use of anticipated for FPH. Convenient access both to and from the building for both students and faculty was desired. Furthermore the building, which was technically part of House I, also needed to show some connection to the central facilities on a sYmbolic level. Thus, Hugh Stubbins placed the building between House I and the central core. If Stubbins' master plan had been fully carried out the building would have formed an important tran- sition between the library / student center and residential buildings I and II. Due to the grade on which the building stood House I Academic was split into several different levels, particu- larly between the east and west wlngs of the buildings. Thus, one is forced to go up one half floor to get to the east wlng classrooms or down one half floor to go to the faculty offices located beneath the east wing. The west wing floats one story above the ground, creating a covered pedes- trian walkway, and houses faculty offices. The lecture rooms occupy a central area between the northernmost parts of the individual wings, the main lecture room below the two smaller 25 lecture rooms. For years the small courtyard formed by FPH's southern reaching Wlngs was somewhat undeveloped and unused by people as they hurried between the dormitories and the central core. In 1991 the courtyard was renovated, providing several small seating areas around low, wide planteI's as well as seating along the low western wall where people could sit and watch people pass by, wait between classes, or hold class outside on nice days. In envisioning the sciences program at Hampshire it was felt that a traditional approach to teaching sciences was too restrictive and not in keeping with Hampshire's underly- lng educational philosophy of encouraging interplay between disciplines. As the curriculum attempted to address this, so too did the design of the sciences building. Hampshire wished not to have a science building in the typical sense, one which ~a was map of academic specialization, with specific areas of floor space assigned to corresponding areas of study."9 Hampshire felt that the school of Natural Sciences should be a place where students learn the tools of scientific re- search only as a means of problem solving and not the end result in and of itself. By not providing rigid structures 26 between disciplines it was hoped that these disciplines would move within and interact with each other. To this end the program for the Cole Science center called for large, multipurpose lab areas capable of holding four or forty students in a lab. The final de- sign for the building in fact used the en- east tire ha 1 f f 0 the second and third floors as one large, open area c h w h i could be partitioned off or left open as use dictated. Six central shafts marked the boundaries between the lab space and the hallway running along a row of faculty offices on each floor. These shafts are one of the few pieces of fixed lab equipment in the building and serve as draft hoods for experi- ments whose byproducts could prove hazardous to unprotected observers. Originally the science center was to have been a four story structure, occupied by administration offices on the first floor, class, lab, and faculty offices on the second and third floors, and a fourth floor consisting of two multipur- pose rooms. The first of these two would be for student use, be it study or student led class. The other room was to have been equipped as a seminar room wi th proj ection and audio facilities. Between the two was to have been a small kitchen, 27 allowing the two rooms to be used for distinguished visitor receptions, open houses, etc. Several rooms required special facilities and / or envi- ronments and, due to spatial constraints, were placed in the basement of the facility. A darkroom, animal room, isotope room, and machine shop were glven space, with appropriate facilities included for each. The darkroom was set up much like any other darkroom expect that provisions were included for future specialized equipment such as a carbon fluoroscope for DNA research. The animal room was provided with a "cold room" in which the temperature could be lowered and the behav- lor of the subject studied ln an easily observable area. With the completion of the Cole Science Center Hampshire College had completed the first phase of Hugh Stubbins master I plan for the campus. The large, Stubbins signature style of building seemed out of place in this pastoral area and was later discarded for a more informal style of architecture. Nevertheless these buildings, being the first built on the new campus, served to establish a toehold for the built Hampshire environment. Footnotes 1 Patterson, Franklin, The Making of a College, ©1966 the Trustees of Hampshire Col- lege, MJ.T. Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 200 - 202 2 Taylor, Robert, Hampshire College Planning Bulletin #3: The Hampshire College Li- brary, © 1969 The Trustees of Hampshire College, p. 9 3 Ibid. 4 Patterson, Franklin, The Making of a College, © 1966 the Trustees of Hampshire Co1- 28 lege, the M.LT. Press, Cambridge 5 Stubbins, Hugh, Architecture: The Design Experience, © 1976 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Inc., E· 13 Ibid. 7 Maltz, David, Memorandum, May 26, 1967 8 Ibid. 9 Hampshire College: The Natural Science Facility, March 2, 1969, p.1 Picture Credits Page 16 Franklin Patterson Hall Under Construction, circa 1968. Photograph by Dick Fish. Archi- val Photo courtesy of Office of Public Relations Photographic Files, HC / Archives VPS.S6 #2 &amp;#3 Page 17 Conceptual Rendering of Library Building. Note absense of surrounding buildings. cour- tesy Hugh Stubbins Associates, 1968 Page 18 Original Floor Plan, Hampshire College Library, First Floor. Courtesy Hugh Stubbins Associates, 1968 Page 19 Construction Elevation, Hampshire College Library, from the east. Courtesy Hugh Stubbins Associates, 1968 Page 20 Division III Book Shelves, Third Floor, Hampshire College Library. Photograph by Mark Oribello Page 21 Original Master Plan, Hampshire College. From Hampshire College: Master Plan, p. 6, Hugh Stubbins Associates, 1968 Page 22 Construction Photograph of Hampshire College Library from Southwest, circa 1969. Photograph by Dick Fish. Archival Photo courtesy of Office of Public Relations Photo- graphic Files, HC / Archives VP5.S6 #2 &amp; #3 Page 25 Conceptual Rendering, East Elevation, Franklin Patterson Hall. Courtesy Hugh Stubbins Associates, 1968 Page 26 Renovated Torrey Courtyard, Franklin Patterson Hall. Photograph by Mark Oribello Page 27 Cole Science Building, Third Floor Laboratory. Photograph by Mark Oribello 29 Chapter 3 House I &amp; II Residential (1968 - 1970) 30 Merrill house was the first student housing to be built on campus; this Stubbins designed dormitory consists of three four story buildings which house an even mix of first year and older students. Each of the three buildings 1S a discreet building in itself; no access between the individual build- ings 1S provided except through serV1ce corridors 1n the basement. Stubbin1s fondness for modern materials is clearly present 1n all of the pieces of architecture he designed for Hamp- shire 11errill being an excellent eXaTCLple. The build- I ings as a whole present a somewhat jarring aes- thetic 1 arising as they do in the midst of the ",pastoral Amherst land- - '~"."" :'t • - •.. .... " • scape like sev- eral discarded pieces of urban structure. Instead of the popular full timber and clapboard vocabulary of the area a visitor to Merrill is confronted with brick and exposed concrete beams framing sleek, modern windows. In describing his views on architecture Stubbins said that "I have a deep respect for function ... Structure is l 31 of great importance. It should be forthright, logical, hon- est." l This philosophy of design was prevalent in much of Stubbin' s work, especially in his academic facility designs. These aca- demic designs differed from much of his other work ln that Stubbins showed a higher degree of restraint in his college archi tecture than ln his urban and residential works. In Franklin Patterson's opinion, " ... Mr. Stubbins has demon- strated keen understanding and creative insight in dealing u2 with the architecture of academic institutions. By donating almost $6 million to Hampshire Harold Johnson had helped establish a foothold for the new college. Unfortu- nately, much of this initial donation, as well as one of the largest donations ever given to a new college by the Ford Foundation, were immediately earmarked for development of the central campus buildings. Beginning ln 1967 the board of trustees, led by Charles Longsworth, sought ways to finance the anticipated student housing. A typical solution, used by almost all colleges and universities, was a series of college housing mortgages financed through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Unfortunately, recent actions and budgetary cuts by the federal government threw acquisi- tion of these loans into doubt. The trustees felt that with a few minor modifications Stubbins' plan for House I would fit Hampshire'S program quite well. By February of 1968 the school felt that time was 32 running short. They immediately began exploring other options to Hugh Stubbins' initial plan for House I, feeling that a backup plan was essential in light of their precarious posi- tion with HUD. Several of the options explored by the college were: • Trailers, much like those in use at the time at the University of California, Santa Cruz; • Town houses much like those built in the Amherst area; such units would be of inexpensive manufacture and would provide less flexibility for the users than Stubbins' s 0 - lution; and • Radical alterations of Stubbins' solution to include the use of wooden frame structural members which could be erected more quickly and cheaply than a poured concrete building. The school was careful not to exclude several points from Patterson's initial program. Single rooms, for example, were seen as "important and should not be something we compromlse on,,3. It was felt, however, that the overall size of the single could be reduced if such a reduction would yield a reasonable savings on construction. One solution to offering students more flexibility and independence was the inclusion of a small kitchenette or food preparation area. While visiting the Quincy house at Harvard University it was noted that the school provided such an area 33 for upperclassmen as well as refrigerators and allowances for hot plates for freshmen and sophomores. Kitchen facilities were a departure from the majority of dormitories (such as those at Amherst and the University of Massachusetts) and had the detriment of adding cost to both initial and long term maintenance costs; however, it was felt that these facilities were important to the wishes of the student body. Fortunately the school was able to obtain the needed grants from HUD and HEW as well as several private donations completion by early 1970. and begin The building, like the other Phase I con- struction on campus, was of poured in place concrete wi th brick facing. By utilizing simple, repeti tive concrete forms with little or no dress- ing construction costs were • kept low while the use of wa- ter struck brick (a favorite material of Stubbins) alluded to the monolithic brick forms of the surrounding colleges' ar- chitecture (Amherst being an excellent example). Each floor was separated into two unequal halls which came to be known by students as the "long" and "short" sides. The short side typically housed seven students in six single rooms and one double while the long side could accommodate ten students in eight singles and one double. In either hall the rooms faced out into a U-shaped hallway which surrounded a 34 communal bathroom. rrhis hallway also led to exits into a central stairwell and the lounge for each floor. Although Merrill presents a rather massive impression from the outside the arrangement of the halls allows for a rather intimate living situation while still allowing each student a high degree of privacy. Furthermore, by avoiding a double loaded corridor and insuring that the halls led nowhere except back into themselves the amount of traffic movlng through the halls was minimized. Each floor in each building shared a single lounge which was located between the two halves of the hall. The original planners of Hampshire decided that by providing an area in which students could prepare food they would encourage a higher level of maturity as well as for allow a high degree of flexibility within student's schedules. Thus, each lounge ln Merrill was equipped with a full sized refrigerator, kitchen sink, and range top element. Furthermore, every other floor was provided with an oven as well as a range top. Counter space equivalent to that ln a moderately sized kitchen allowed several students to use these facilities at a time. Hampshire matriculated its first incoming class in the fall of 1970 with one allotment of student housing completed and a second one underway. This second one continued to be built throughout the first year of classes and was finished in time for Hampshire's second incoming class. This house, named after benefactor Winthrop Dakin, was significantly different in design from Merrill house. Initially it was to have been a 35 tower, based in part on those at the University of Massachu- setts, which Stubbins and designed several years previously. A design solution proposed by Hugh Stubbins for Hampshire's second set of student housing responds partially to Hampshire's desire for small, intimate housing for large amounts of stu- dents. Stubbins felt that a tower design similar to those at other schools would serve Hampshire's needs appropriately. In fact several members of Hampshire had had occasion to visit several of Stubbin's towers at other schools, including those ~·1assachuset Harvard, and at BovJdoin, ts. While there they interviewed students, staff, and administra- tors; student life at each of these buildings was examined in depth as well as issues in physical management and upkeep. Stubbins' Senior Center at Bowdoin was closest to the idea proposed for Hampshire's tower; four groups of four students lived on a level, making for a highly intimate yet private living area. Each set of four students shared a common area and a one bathroom was shared between two sets of suites. It was felt that small numbers of students uSlng a bathroom would lend a "civilizing effect 4 to an area which would nor- mally prove the hardest section of a student living area to maintain. Two large lounges were also provided on the top floor for larger social and academic gatherings. The first was used primarily as a library while the other lounge held re- serve books for those classes held in these two lounges. Kitchen facilities were also provided in the form of a small kitchen connecting the two lounges, however, these facilities 36 were not normally open to students and therefore were consid- ered largely useless for students' every day lives. Further- more, college policy prohibited the use of hot plates or other such devices in student's rooms. Visi tors from Hampshire noted that many students from several different colleges visited voiced the same complaints concerning the buildings they lived in; sound moved easily from room to room and from floor to floor due in large part to the materials used in construction. Furthermore, many of the residences in Stubbins' dormitories felt that the individual rooms lacked ornamentation and that the rigid shape of the rooms severely limited the options of the individual resi- dent. It was also observed that movement and interaction between denizens of individual floors remained horizontal and that the design of the tower in no way encouraged vertical social interaction. Some work was done toward this end, with soil analysis and legal aspects explored (including receiving permission from nearby Westover Air Force Base for construction of such a tall building so close to an Air Base) as well as projected economic costs of construction and maintenance. Many members of Hampshire's Board of Trustees felt that such a significant urban structure ln a setting like Hampshire's would be a mistake, however. "The effort (of design) starts with a simple point of emphasis: buildings set in the landscape, not set upon it ... Mr. Stubbins' current high rise plans for Hampshire 37 can, I believe, be faulted on these grounds. "5 Thanks to timely assistance from benefactors wi th HUD Hampshire was able to obtain a loan from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for $2,185,000 and ground was broken on October 21st, 1969, with Merrill House still under construction. Like House I, Dakin House would house the major- ity of its students in single rooms. Dakin House stands opposite the Merrill Quad from Merrill at the southernmost part of the Hampshire campus. Originally vv"as to have been located to the west of Academic building I &amp; II (Franklin Patterson Hall) so as to make Patterson Hall more central to House I and II. However, Stubbin's long term plan for the campus indicated that further growth would be to the north of the library as well as to the West of House I and that by placing House II to the west of Academic I &amp; II the central area would become crowded. Like Merrill, it was designed by Hugh Stubbins as part of the original plan for the campus; as with many Stubbins build- lngs, the exterior is brick facing over poured concrete. In this case, a series of rectangular boxes are linked to form a trun- cated question mark shape. Strong emphasis is placed on rectilin- 38 ear forms; balconies, fenestration, the inte- rlor quadrangle" and other details all echo the long rectangle shape of the 'rT'" ......... I r buildings. In their program for House II the Trustees felt the need to r explore less institutional, more intimate buildings. From the TI start Hampshire had expressed the desire to "revitalize the ha~"""" residential college,,6 and I • I gressively sought alternatives to traditional housing solu- tions. Feeling somewhat con- urbanistic~ strained by Stubbin's master plan the Trustees asked for a more intimate series of buildings on a smaller scale than Merrill for House II. What was finally produced was a large building consisting of sev- eral smaller buildings connected via narrower sections of structure and topped by small tower units looking very much 39 like the top of Stubbins' later Citicorp Center. The recessed structures (which house the bathroom for each hall) glve an impression of discontinuity within the structure, thereby making each section of Dakin seem to stand alone. Each hall in Dakin is organized along a central double loaded corridor with individual student's rooms facing out onto this long, straight hallway. Both ends are open to public traffic, one side opening into a stairwell and the other opening into the hall's communal bathroom. Each bathroom in Dakin in connected via a sWlnglng door to another bathroom on the neighboring hall. The accessible hallways and linked bath- rooms cause each individual hall to become a high traffic area, especially just before and after meal times when stu- dents pass through these corridors to a doorway placed less than one hundred feet from the front door of the dining commons. As in Merrill plans were made to include kitchen amenl- ties to Dakin House residences. After some discussion, how- ever, it was decided that kitchen facilities for House II would be consolidated in one area which would be kept locked and accessible to students through the Master's office. Addi- tional space which would have been taken up by these facili- ties ln individual lounges was therefore reclaimed. These kitchen facilities were located adjacent to the laundry fa- cilities in the basement level of the building. Shortly after the completion of Dakin House a smaller, yet very important project was launched: that of a "student 40 pavillion". This student pavillion was to have furnished an area where students could go and relax. Facilities for stu- dents up until that time had included a library, classrooms, science center, and dining commons but no place that students could go to not be students. "We had 550 kids on campus and there was no space to go any place other than to class and to bed" recalls Howard Paul. In the original plan for the campus Hugh Stubbins had placed this small building in the western side of the Merrill Quad, making it convenient for those the campus. By the time serious planning for the building occurred House III was already being considered and the pavillion was moved to the low rise overlooking Dakin to the west. The building itself was to have been a simple wood frame sturcture with several large, all purpose rooms. Conference rooms were also lounges which in turn could become social gathering spaces. Areas for such activities as ping pong and billiards were also set aside, as was a small snack bar. In short, the building aimed to fill an informal yet very impor- tant space in the social life of the campus, a space which Franklin Patterson originally envisioned as not being existant on the Hampshire Campus. In The Making of a College he wrote "For those who seek the noise of a jukebox let them go else- where". Plans were drawn up by Hugh Stubbins and were sent out to bid; when the college received the bids and opened them they found that the original estimates for the buildings were far from those that they had anticipated and abandoned the 41 student pavillion project. Some years later many of these spaces would find a home in the new Robert Crown Center, but for the time being students were forced to seek entertainment elsewhere. When plans had been made for House I dining it was decided that, to economize space and save money, dining facilities for House I and II would share the same kitchen. To allow for this and to encourage student interaction the dining facilities for House II were constructed as an addition to House I dining. 'fl. dents throughout a mealtime was built onto the south side of the existing building. Because of the short time span between buildings and the fact that plans for the House II dining addition were made while construction of House I Dining was just beginning the entire building presents a uniform aes- thetic which matches its two flanking buildings. To a casual observer it is not readily apparent that this addition was made, especially if one discounts the use of exterior brick facing in the smaller of the two original dining rooms (part of the room had originally been an exterior wall). Footnotes Stubbins, Hugh, Architecture: The Design Experience, © 1976 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Inc. 1 Patterson, Franklin, The Making of a College, ©1966 The Trustees of Hampshire Col- 2 lege, The M.LT. Press, Cambridge, p. 194 3 Patterson, Franklin, in a memorandum to Charles Longsworth, February 21,1968 4 Rosenthal, Kenneth, in a memo to Charles R. Longsworth, dated April 28,1967 42 5 Boettiger, John, A Brief Addendum to an Earlier Memo on Architecture and the Hamp- shire Community, May 19,1967, p.2 6 Longsworth, Charles, memorandum, July 6, 1969 Picture Credits Page 31 Conceptual Rendering, Merrill House, "A" and "B" sections, from the south. Courtesy Hugh Stubbins Associates, 1968 Page 34 Merrill "B" Floor Plan, First Floor. Courtesy Hugh Stubbins Associates, 1968 Page 38 View of Dakin House, Entrance to "D" and "E" from the northeast. Photograph by Mark Oribello Page 39 Floor Plan, Dakin House, First Floor. Courtesy Hugh Stubbins Associates, 1969 43 Chapter 4 The Mods (1970 - 1973) 44 Greenwich House was the third of five student housing developments to be built at Hampshire College. Students en- tering in the fall of 1970 (Hampshire's first entering class) were witness to the construction of Hampshire's second hous- ing building but had little voice in its design as plans and construction specifications had already been produced well in advance. House III, named Greenwich after one of three local towns destroyed by flooding due to the Quabbin reservoir's construction, was still In the planning stages throughout 1970 and early 1971. That Decenilier several Hillupshire students set a precedent for much of Hampshire's later design and construction process; they asked for, and were granted, a meeting with John Myer, project leader for Hampshire's House III. A great deal of planning had already been completed on the structures, however, work still remained on the landscape immediately surrounding the proposed site. Before writing Charles Longsworth with their demands the students did re- search in an attempt to determine a general consensus. The students, members of a campus design course, asked students about the less desirable points of House I (House II was still under construction) as well as compiling a "wish list" for House III. Most prominent on the student's list was a desire for a physical layout different than that already provided in ei- ther of the two existing houses. An idea previously broached by Hampshire's planning committee found favor among many of 45 the students - that of a serles of cottages much in the style of the New England village. The New England village was liked for another reason; many students felt that such massive buildings discouraged intimacy and privacy. Numbers of smaller cottages rather than one or two big units were preferred. Although the majority of students liked individual lounges placed on each floor they felt that the resources of these lounges were extremely limited. Additional space and appli- ances were recommended, as well as relocating the lounge to a more central area. Other concerns cited the small size of the singles (although single rooms were unanimously supported), noise transmission, bathroom amenities, and inherent problems within the dining commons. An area in which many students found themselves dissatis- fied was landscaping; they felt that current efforts in that direction had resul ted in a form of gentrification. "Most students were concerned wi th having the college blend wi th its environment. To accomplish this they would like to have as natural a landscaping as possible rather than lawns and rows of shrubs. We should take full advantage of the area's natural beauty by trying to preserve as many trees and fields as we can as well as replanting other areas. "1 Ashley, Myer, and Smith, Assoc. had already received a program from the Trustees' Planning committee for House IlIon January 16, 1969. In it, the trustees stated that, "We recog- nize and approve of student desires for greater privacy, less insti tutional character, and more control of the physical 46 environment in their housing. Their program further stated "2 that, "House III should be explored ini tially as a village this we take to mean variety in structure and roof line, intimacy of atmosphere, modest scale, organization as a community ... mixture of functions (residential, social, recre- ational), and some provision for adult family units as well as student residences. "3 On November 3, 1969 the Trustees of Hampshire College terminated their agreement with Hugh Stubbins and Associates TTT design and construction on the -L...L..J.., explore design solutions in other directions. Some initial work had already been done in this direction with the firm of Ashley / Myer / Smith before November 3, and this firm now began a series of cottages matching the ideal asked for in previous House designs. The Trustee's plan called for housing for 300 at a cost of $7,500 per student. This $7,500 included common areas, shared bathrooms, and single rooms. Because of recent funding re- strictions imposed on HUD loans by the current presidential administration building loans for new college construction were at a premium. A new program from HUD offered some hope, however. Because of the funding squeeze the Department of Housing and Human resources was interested in finding innova- tive, inexpensive methods of large scale housing. Their "Op- eration Breakthrough" program was established to fund proto- types built on college campuses which could be analyzed and possibly used at other sites. 47 The University Residential Building System (URBS) had been developed at the University of California with help from the Educational Facilities Laboratory between 1965 and 1970. The URBS was intended to produce cheaper, higher quality facili ties rapidly by employing a series of "modular pre- engineered compatible building components 1/4 Walls, floors, even HVAC components were designed to interlock in almost any combination and be usable at almost any scale. This flexibil- ity was deemed essential by many colleges at the time because co~mon of the feeling that traditional dormitory housing for students was becoming obsolete. Changes in student attitudes toward their housing, a greater need for control over their environment, and the rise of coeducational student housing necessitated changes in dormitory design. Once local contrac- tors were trained in URBS techniques a structure could be erected in as short a period of time as four weeks, with all rough work completed during the construction period. Theo- retically the price of URBS construction would continue to lessen as more units were ordered and more components mass produced. On March 16, 1970, the Trustee's Committee on Architec- ture and Campus Planning approved the recommendation to have Ashley, Myer, Smith, Inc. alter their designs to accommodate The University Residential Building System method of con- struction. AMS worked through that spring and part of that summer to develop a set of plans which would incorporate URBS. Bidding was begun in late summer with Aquadro &amp; Cerruti pre- 48 senting the successful bid. Aquadro &amp; Cerruti had previously built both Merrill and Dakin houses and had established a very good working repertoire with the Trustees of Hampshire Col- lege. By midwinter it became very apparent that the AMS struc- tures incorporating URBS would be far too costly for Hamp- shire. Although they had received several loans from HUD and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare a set of adjusted prices presented by Aquadro &amp; Cerruti and Ashley, adjusted prices were figures arrived at after cost estimates for URBS materials had been received; previous to that bids had been based on estimated materials costs given by the University of California, San Diego, from their first URBS construction project. The higher prlce was also based on a rlse ln the most expensive part of construction: labor. Construction tech- niques for URBS were different enough to require specialized contractors with knowledge of URBS construction techniques. Thus far, only a handful of contractors in southern California had actually built URBS structures, and most of these worked for one of the three companies manufacturing components for the system. Although these contractors could be moved to the East Coast it would add additional cost to the project, al- ready woefully over budget. Furthermore, Hampshire's contract with Aquadro &amp; Cerruti required them to use local union per- sonnel for most of their labor. Although local contractors 49 could learn URBS techniques, the time required to learn the new system as well as cost overruns for \\ learning curve" mistakes would seriously hinder the possibility of House III being built on time and within budget. Time was running shortj the groundbreaking deadline for URBS completion in fall 1973 had already passed and Hampshire desperately needed housing for an additional 92 students. A great deal of money had already been invested in the design of House III and the Trustees were anxious to keep costs down. +: . . . . ............. +- ............... _ +-~ HUD and HEW loans had already been secured "'V" .LVL \.,...V.lJ..:::&gt;l-.LU\....- \",..J..LC tion of House III and many students had already received letters of admission for the following school year. Hampshire turned to Hugh Stubbins, rehiring him as a consultant for House III. Various options were considered, from temporary trailers to off campus housing. Traditional concrete and steel buildings were rejected out of hand due to their high cost, long construction time, and general unsuit- ability for the program. A local fabrication firm proved to be the solution for Hampshire's housing problem. Fontaine Fabrication, Inc., of Northampton, was a producer of prefabricated housing modules. Prefabricated sections of buildings were produced in the Northampton plant and deliv- 50 ered to site, where a crane moved them into place on a poured foundation pad and local contractors fastened them together. Interior walls, utili ties, and finish work were them com- pleted. The system had lower construction costs than typical balloon framing due to lower labor costs as well as being faster (a building structure could be erected in less than a week, giving rise to a popular student myth that Greenwich was built in a day). The prefabricated housing differed from most of Hampshire's new construction in several ways. The structures were wood frame wi th clapboard siding, a much more traditional aes- thetic for New England. The scale of the units differed from other buildings on campus as well as most other student hous- ing of the time. Instead of huge, monolithic buildings the idea of small cottages form- t" ing an in- timate ,.,. 51 New England village was finally realized by several small, two story, eight unit buildings. The size of the units varied to accommodate four to six students, mostly in single rooms. Each unit also had a large common area and connections for a small, self contained kitchen were built in. In the first two sets of apartments kitchens were not installed until later, when three more units were built with kitchen amenities. The design of the individual units served another pur- pose; they could function as apartments for faculty or staff cpus. living on The Department of Housing and HUITlan Davel opment, in its "Operation Breakthrough" program, sought new and innovative housing solutions for colleges and universi- ties which were economical as well as maintaining local and federal building codes. Furthermore, in an attempt to make these housing solutions more fiscally self sufficient HUD had glven approval for some of the units to be rented out as apartments wi th the hope that the lncome garnered would enable the HUD loans to be paid back in a more timely fashion. Fontaine Modular's bid for House III was low enough that Hampshire began construction that November. Two units were completed by September 15, 1971, shipped on trucks from Northampton to the college and lifted into place piece by piece. These two "donuts" housed an additional 100 students who had been admitted in an attempt to bolster Hampshire's financial situation. An additional three units were completed by August of the next year. Hampshire had built its third house within two years of openlng its doors. 52 True to its word Hampshire carefully weighed any and all student input regard- ing Greenwich i not only were kitchens installed and smaller units used but the landscaping was left in a largely pris- Host trees the area, state. In of medium sized deciduous with several conifers, were left in place. Scrub growth was removed and dirt paths, established in true New England "cow path" tradition, were groomed. These paths were eventually paved and later replaced with raked gravel. Be- tween 1991 and 1992 some large growth was removed due to structural problems created by the tree's constant shading but much of the original growth still remains as it was when Greenwich was originally sited to the north of the library in 1971. An extension of the loop road was brought up to allow for emergency vehicle access and a parking area laid out slightly to the east and to the north of the units, away from the center of the units. By removing the parking areas from the units Hampshire continued a planning tradi tion set by Dakin and Merrill houses - keeping vehicle traffic on the periphery of the college and reserving the central core of the campus for pedestrian traffic. A problem addressed over the years was the 53 fact that Greenwich, seeded by paths, had no boundaries or fences to prevent people from simply driving up onto the grass and over the pedestrian paths. At the beginning and ends of the semester this was especially a problem in that most people were moving into or out of their apartments, leaving Greenwich torn up and crisscrossed by tire tracks. Access from the South had been prevented by the use of a chain gate but vehicles continued to move through Greenwich until 1991, when a post fence was installed along the south side of the road running alongside Greenwich. Hampshire had been especially pleased with Fontaine's construction of House III (Greenwich); students liked the high levels of privacy and autonomy the design of the houses delivered and the school had been able to find HUD financing during a time of unusual tight federal fiscal control. It was recognized, however, that additional housing was quickly needed. Hampshire had not reached the point where they could open a significant number of beds up through graduation and more students were applying for admission as Hampshire's reputa- tion grew. Estimating an additional 300 students would be arriving in the fall of 1972 Hampshire's trustees asked Ashley, Myer, and Smith to produce House IV plans. Development of an URBS based plan for House IV had been developed by Ashley Myer and Smith at the same time plans for House III were made; the AMS solution called for a continua- tion of URBS units to the west of Dakin running north of House III. Unfortunately construction costs were still too high and 54 implementation would not be feasible for residency by Septem- ber 1973. Time for construction was extremely limited, how- ever, and if the school wished to maintain the $3.5 million in HUD and HEW loans secured for House IV construction they would have to find a solution quickly. The Fontaine solution had worked well and AMS began to work with prefabricated forms in Fontaine's catalog. Although the House III solution had provided a higher level of intimacy and privacy there was a sense of isolation due to the enclosed form of the buildings. Its physical siting in the northerThuost end of the campus created a sense of distance from the rest of the community as well. Students were not forced to enter the Merrill/Dakin area of the campus and thus those students ln House III had little or no interaction with many members of the student body. The Hampshire Board of Trustees were still quite enamored of the New England Village idea; such a collection of build- ings would reinforce a sense of communi ty on a small and workable scale while encouraging self reliance. Ashley, Myer, Smith worked to make this a central concept in their design for House IV and arrived at a solution of small clusters of modular units arranged to create small open areas between several clusters. An individual wishing to pass through Enfield would not be able to simply speed past rows of houses set on a double loaded street but would rather be forced to wind their way through the community on a series of winding paths. The structures differed from the earlier Fontaine module 55 houses in several ways. First and most apparent was a lack of uniformity amongst the forms of the buildings. While Green- wich was composed of a series of regular forms Enfield's modular uni ts utilized a wider range of modular forms and relied more heavily on placement by the architect. The exte- rior relied heavily on local expression, a sensitivity to the region not evidenced by either House I or House II. Like Greenwich, the exterior was faced with New England style clapboards and, in a further nod to tradition, was edged with cornerboards reminiscent of its neighboring farm houses. Enfield rose three stories above the ground rather than Greenwich's two but due to the fact that Enfield was set into a section of ground lower than most of the surrounding area a feeling of towering over the landscape was avoided. AMS de- cided to place House IV to the east of Greenwich, on the far north periphery of the campus, ln an area that had been previously declared as unfit for building on due to poor drainage. Nevertheless construction was begun shortly after comple- tion of House III. The modules were trucked down Bay road from Northampton and lifted into place by a crane. Once in place workers would secure the pieces to the already poured founda- tion while other carpenters would begin the limi ted, but necessary, rough in work. Once the module had been placed and secured other tradesmen such as electricians and plumbers would move in to carry out the roughing in of supply lines, water feeds, etc., much as in typical wood stud construction 56 for residential homes. Afterwards the 1 ines were covered by sheets of drywall (which had been specified because they were cheaper than lathe and plas- ter) and the finish work painting, wallpapering, etc. could be completed. Despite the limited construction needed for the modules not every unit was com- pleted on schedule; almost half of the incoming class who were to have been housed in the new units were houses off campus, either at a girl's school in Northampton or at the University of Massachusetts; the one exception was a student who, faced with the prospect of living off campus and having to commute nearly an hour every day, took matters into his own hands and built temporary housing on campus for himself from several large cardboard boxes. Prescott House was the final of five houses built at 57 Hampshire between 1968 and 1973. Much of the design for the house was based upon work done by Ashley, Myer, Smith, Inc. in an earlier aborted design for House III. In that solution the firm predicated a series of clusters of houses based upon the original plan for Hampshire's houses in The Making of a Col- lege. These clusters would contain a small number of indi- vidual apartments which would in turn house a small number of students in single rooms. These individual apartments would allow for a high degree of student independence and privacy as ex~aple, well as being flexible ln their use; the units, for could house faculty and their family or even married students. The original AMS plan had been altered in 1970 in an attempt to utilize the URBS construction system, an attempt that ultimately was scrapped due to cost overruns and other logistical factors. The original, pre-URBS plans proposed by AMS remained, however, and Hampshire decided to use these plans for their final house. The original plans were not completely usable, however, and AMS was forced to revise the House III design. Changes in student oplnlon, budgetary constraints, and additional input from Hampshire's board of trustees caused a rethinking of the alms of House III (now House V). Unfortunately, Hampshire was once again running short on time; HUD loans had been secured and Hampshire was anticipating the final additional 300 stu- dents to arrive on campus in just over a year. AMS was under considerable pressure to produce within a very short amount of time. 58 Hampshire had asked AMS for housing for 260 students, all In single rooms. Each unit was to vary in size from 4 to 14 person units; after receiving feedback from students the largest size would house 12 people, with an average size of 8 students to a unit. As with Hampshire's other four houses the units would be coeducational with some allowance made for students wishing to remain in single gender housing. As per student wishes kitchen facilities were included in the original de- sign. AHS recog-ni zed the unique character of student housing; In their program for House V it was noted that "there is a perceived pattern of experimentation with living group size and relationship, ultimately leading to more independent and sepa- rate occupancy in the last few terms, and tending to smaller groups."s AMS saw the other houses on campus as contributing to the variegated living experiences on campus in that each possessed a unique character. It was important for House V to be different from the other houses on campus precisely because of this. If each house on campus boasted an individual personality they had at least one thing in common: the houses, particu- larly Greenwich and Enfield, were different from most student housing available at the time. It was felt that housing at 59 Hampshire was not merely a place wherein a student hung their hat and slept while not at class but rather another learning experience. In Hampshirers opinion r "the residential units must facilitate social organization without forcing compul- sory participation. This attitude was echoed by the student "6 body. A concept proposed by Patterson in The Making of a Col- lege finally found fruition in the plans for House V - that of integrated faculty offices r classroom spacer and student hous- ing. Small nillliliers of units r joined by a central stairwell r huddled in small groups around a central courtyard; at the base of most of these classroom and office space was placed on this central stairwell. Although the amount of space created was fairly limited these classrooms still find use today and have the effect of forcing non Prescott residents to explore Prescott. As with the other four houses dining facili ties were included; these took the form of a stand alone structure on the southernmost end of the courtyard. The building itself possesses the same corrugated steel and cinder block con- struction laced with fire escapes as does the rest of Prescott but a large outside deck was provided to allow students to eat inside or outside at their leisure. House V dining r like House III and IV r was intended to have less use and a more limited menu than House I and II dining due to the availability of cooking facilities in each of the apartment units. It had been the hope that House V dining would have a menu consisting of 60 fast food and easily storable, pre prepared food and thus House V's kitchen facilities were kept at a minimum. The modular units at Hampshire were intended to be an economical and fast solution to housing at Hampshire. By building the walls while the foundations were being poured the school could rapidly create new housing every year. The mods were not just cheap housing, however. By providing essen- tially on campus apartments the college was allowing its students a higher degree of responsibility and flexibility than most other colleges at the time. Furthermore, the apart- ment style living answered the current trend of off campus living without losing the on campus students it desperately needed. Footnotes Cohen, Laura, in a memorandum to Charles Longsworth and John Myer, December 16/ 1970. 1 Longsworth, Charles, Hampshire College: House III, June 16, 1969/ p. 1 2 3 Ibid., p. 2 URBS Goes Private At Hampshire College, EFL College Newsletter, Sept. 1970/ p. 7 4 Ashley, Myer, Smith, Inc./ Hampshire College: House V Report, July 111/1972/ pA 5 Ibid., p. 5 6 Picture Credits Page 50 Greenwich "Donut" Plan, First Floor. By Mark Oribello Page 51 Conceptual Rendering, Greenwich House, Donuts 2 and 3. Courtesy Hugh Stubbins Associates, 1970 61 Page 53 Interior, Mod 36, Common Space and Kitchen Facilities. Photograph by Mark Oribello Page 57 Construction of Enfield Modular Units, circa 1972. Photograph by Dick Fish. Archival Photo- graph courtesy of Office of Public Relations Photographic Files, HC/Archives VP5.56 #2 &amp; #3 Page 59 Exterior of Prescott Units #72 - #79 fr om the southwest. Photograph by Mark Oribello 62 ChapterS Later Construction (1973 - ) 63 In The Making of a Col- lege Franklin Patterson out- lined a plan for recreational facilities which would fol- low the general philosophy of Hampshire college. Rather than an elaborate gymnasium adjacent to copious playing fields where football teams reigned Patterson envisioned a simple multipurpose area combining economy with flexibility. An enclosed swimming pa- vilion "would be as much a social and recreational place for the college community as an athletic one ... it should be as attractive as possible, with opportunities around it for stu- dents to relax and talk and mix and have fun."l The program for Hampshire's athletic structure was unlike any built for a college previously due to Hampshire's atti- tudes about athletics in college. Hampshire did not have s series of spectator sports but instead encouraged sports which everyone could participate in. Furthermore, the school felt that "Learning and applying skills needed to enjoy the natural world - climbing ... hiking, bicycling ... - represent an oppor- tunity for individual physical and moral development".2 Thus, many of the traditional areas and paraphernalia needed for a college gymnasium would be unnecessary. One of the primary statements made by the school at the onset of planning for the 64 ~Management, Crown center was that participation and teaching in individual sports and team athletics should be returned to students,,3 What would be required would be spaces which would be adaptable for many different uses - from loosely organized sports to large scale pickup games to individual use. It was recognized that the space would have many different demands placed upon it throughout the years and that these demands would change as student preference changed. Hampshire knew that it would be impossible for them to effectively define a pattern of student use for a building that had not been built based on a somewhat radical educational philosophy. It was therefore left to the architect to allow for change ln use, especially during the first few years, when the school's recreational program would be defined by the students. The Student Activities Committee had submitted a series of recommendations for the new athletic facilities and these recommendations, along with Patterson's The Making of a Col- formed the basis of the program for the new center. lege, Student opinion on the athletic use of the space was largely in line with Patterson's ideas as presented in the work- lng paper. The students felt that the new structure should provide opportunities for aspects of recreation (meaning ~normal 65 a socializing / fun-sort-of-break-from-the-normal-routine)"4 as well as space for formalized athletic facilities (although it was accepted that the school had neither the funds nor the inclination to support large numbers of organized athletic teams) . Patterson originally envisioned the athletic structure as "not a gYmnasium or field house, but something simpler and easier to maintain than either"5 A domed structure placed over a patch of bare, level earth was given as a suggestion, with connected sanitary facilities. In fact Hillupshire possessed a large inflatable structure over a series of tennis courts for many years i this structure was known as "The Bubble" and, after years of patching, was finally abandoned in 1980 due to high maintenance costs. The structure was removed but the courts underneath were kept and remain to this day. As the program for the athletic structure took shape, U ::;~.p;:H·~.:r;;:~ 'U t;o'm2 til ~,~"lll'J' 1'~!bJ" 11 J,W;.ttt"t't' ... 1- fJ ft~::-k :.j;f'::h~;;; '-""&lt;Ill t TlF,He 1:' Gaff(-:I 2Q k~vA";~ ; P'f:;;;A Jl!'7.-H;. I Otf,t.-eJi 21 P,;XJ1 h.),;Jli1 t Gl,&lt;."tq~Ar Hl;:,r- ... ,~;.;':!Q-;(, 22 !:.lrHi;"'" ts lJ-bli/Y tJ f.,.i~af",~ \},k~';,: n W"-:rr.·~_ J{",;q~,,~ 1. U",-,:f&lt;1.1q·" t2 Sht~t'" Ul}0:('o}'f to&lt;:c .... a 1'3 T~;)lI!f; .\..r:;:.ht however, the common consensus came to be that the new recre- ational facilities would be housed in a stand alone building. 66 Apart from a spaClOUS, flexible gymnasium area many people also expressed a desire for a large swimming pool. It was felt that this swimming pool area could become yet another area where students could meet and relax in an informal situation. There was much discussion on the placement of the pool; some faculty and students wanted to place the pool outside so as to encourage "accidental" social meetings while others pointed out factors such as climate, security, and maintenance costs. A compromise was reached by placing the pool within a large, glassed in section of the building. The vast, open structure combined with the glass walls to the south and east to create a sense of being outdoors while still being shel- tered and inside the building. A large, sliding glass door system was also included; on nice days almost half of the south "wall" could be opened up to the outside world, further blurring the line between inside and outside as well as allow- ing movement of canoes and kayaks into and out of the pool area. The playing floor took center stage within the building; the 10,000 square foot space was somewhat irregularly shaped, allowing the floor to be split into several areas, each of which could be used independently of each other. A large, regulation sized basketball court was laid out along a good part of this area, however, the size and shape also accommo- dated a baseball diamond, floor hockey, badminton court, etc. The entire floor was covered by a highly resilient polyure- thane and marked out with differing spaces for each court. 67 Thus, while it was possible to play basketball or badminton within a well marked and delineated court one was not con- strained within that court as the entire floor presented a uniform surface. A gallery ran around three fourths of the playing floor, providing observation space for spectators while not restricting movement within the gym. At one end of the gallery space was laid out for a small weight room while at the southernmost end a small lounge enabled students to socialize without being disturbed by any other activities occurr-ing within the build- ing. Finally, a small pocket was carved out in the southwest- ern area of the second floor to allow for activities such as pool and ping pong. Although the Crown Center provided for a high degree of flexibili ty and wide range of options there were several facilities which were not included. The Crown Center had neither the space nor the funding for a full sized weight room nor could it support tennis with its fixed nets and relatively large court areas. The school had several outside tennis courts but these were unus- abl e dur ing inc limen t weather. In late 1987 Presi- dent Adele Simmons proposed that a large tennis barn structure be erected on cam- pus; funds for the construc- tion would be raised partly 68 through private memberships to the "Bay Road Tennis Club" as it came to be called. The facility, a large warehouse struc- ture, contained three full sized tennis courts used by both students and outside individuals as well as for a tennis camp during the summer. A central structure placed in the center of the building shell houses sanitary facilities and a full sized weight room as well as a large mulitpurpose room. Davis, Brody, &amp; Associates recognized the need for coher- ence within the central core. Originally, the exterior of the building was to be the same water struck brick as Stubbins had used, however, cost and user preference dictated a change in exterior treatment. An idea proposed to Hampshire in which the two buildings were con- nected physically Vla a bridge structure was met with a great deal of enthusiasm; in fact, a third building, pro- posed but never built, was to have been con- nected to the Crown Center at the same level in much the same manner, thereby creating an indoor corridor beginning with the covered walk- way of Franklin Patterson Hall, leading through the proposed Humanities and Arts building, past the observation window for the swimming pool and along the gallery overlooking the gYm floor, into the library lounge with a view into the gallery, 69 ending finally at the front door of the library. The whole system was to have lent a sense of coherency to the central quadrangle area as well as precipitating a journey in which a traveler would view current happenings in Franklin Patterson, then be given an opportunity to see the latest works in the Humanities and Arts buildings, past photographic, architec- tural, and rendered works in galleries and studios as well as glimpses of performances. As they went on their way they would be able to stop and watch swimmers, kyakers, and other water sports as well as observe sporting events before finally proceeding to the library center. Thus, by simply traveling from a dormitory to the post office a student would be exposed to a wide range of experiences. As the student body at Hampshire grew so did the demands placed upon the physical facilities. An additional 300 stu- dents were added to the population every year between 1970 and 1973 and, while student housing sprung up (somethimes almost overnight) like toadstools across the Hampshire landscape classroom and other specialized need spaces were becoming scarcer and scarcer. For a time the third floor of the library was annexed by the art department in an attempt to provide studio and classroom spaces for students; this was put to an end when the fire chief for Amherst learned of it and con- ducted a surprise inspection. When he saw the crude temporary dividers made from cardboard, sheets, or untreated wood, the large open containers of flammable agents such as tuluone and mineral spirits, and numerous other fire code violations he 70 immediately filed an injuction preventing the use of the floor as a studio space. The art department was, for the time, homeless. Painting and sculpture weren't the only arts looking for a new home, however. Hampshire's original plan for the 1 ibrary center had called for a limited amount of space to be provided in the basement for television and film development. Hampshire's only darkrooms, editing labs, and studios were crammed to- gether in one half of the basement. Due to space restictions spaces for these classes had wait lists as long as two and a half years. Furthermore, Hampshire's photography department was often at odds with the film department in that darkroom spaces for both was at a premium. Hampshire was rapidly aquiring video production and editing facilities which were also starting to impinge on the already tight basement space. Individuals in the music department were sililarly at a loss for space. While individuals with guitars could quietly practice in their single rooms tempers quickly flared when a hallmate took an interest in the basoon. Both master's houses had pianos which students were given limited access to, but this was hardly a useful long range option. One of the first pieces of musical equipment donated to the college was a MOOG musical synthesizer; electronic music had recently come to the fore as a new field and several students and faculty were eager to take advantage of the school's new aquisi tion. Unfortuantely, there was no place available for the synthe- sizer in any of the new buildings, so the instrument was 71 placed ln a corn crib next to Blair Hall. Howard Paul recol- lects, UWe didn't have any place to put it. So there literally was a corn crib on the west end of the Stiles complex that had 3" wide boards and the 1" spaces to dry the corn. That is where the MOOG synthesizer was put when it came. And we built around it ... 6 ff By the fall of 1972 House III had been completed and the school was beginning to turn its attentions back toward aca- demic buildings. Some kind of athletic / recreational facil- ity was needed, they felt, as well as space for the burgeoning school of Humani ties and Arts. Faculty space was peppered throughout the school's two buildings; design professors sat next to physicists, biology professors were sandwiched be- tween literature and philosophy professors, and psychology professors stood opposite the calculus department. This ar- rangement provided the varigated and ecclectic mix hoped for by Hampshire's planners ln that it encouraged a vigorous interaction by differing disciplines, however, it was rapidly becoming difficult for the day to day business of the school to be carried out. Classroom space was at a premium, espe- cially for those classes needing specialized spaces such as SClence courses, photography courses, etc. A program for a proposed Humanities and Arts building was started not long after planning for the new athletic building had begun and there was a great deal of examination of the coherency of the school's existing buildings. Stubbin's mas- ter plan had called for an ambitous and extensive building 72 campalgn spanning the length and bredth of the campus; conse- quentially, the buildings built during Phase I construction tended to be spaced rather far apart. Hampshire had neither the inclination nor the need to fund such a large scale project, and thus was left with a rather sparse campus. To further complicate the problem the residences had been placed along the periphery of the central core, creating a rather long walk between any residence and central building. Aesthetically this caused severe problems as a visitor to ca~pus the had extreme problems discerning the central, focal point of the campus. The two buildings surrounding the quad- rangle, the library and the science center, did not generate enough of a sense of presense for people to identify it as the campus core. The new athletic building had been placed next to the library for this very reason, and plans were made to place the Humanities and Arts complex across the eastern periphery of the quad, connected to the new Crown center. The new building would have served the dual purpose of an Arts center and an arrival point for people arriving on campus. Further- more, while the northern end of the building was to have been connected to the Crown center the southern end was to have been left open, facing the exit point from Franklin Patterson Hall. It was thought that a student corning from one of the dormatories or from Franklin Patterson Hall would, especially during inclement weather, enter the building from the south and move along its central aXlS on their way toward the library or post office. Once en route the student would be 73 allowed glimpses into galleries, studios, and performance thus be enticed to further explore the happenings - ",.",",. and goings on within the building. A student making his way through the building and to the Crown center would be afforded views of the swimming pool and gymnasium floor as they contin- ued along, finally arriving at the library. Sadly, Hampshire was unable to raise the needed funds for the proposed building and an alternative plan was needed. In 1975 two Hampshire professors in private architectural prac- tice were invited to submit a solution which would allow for the flexible spaces needed while keeping costs at a minimun. Their solution harkened back to an earlier proposal for the Cole science building in which a large, warehouse like struc- ture would be built with very few interior partitioning walls so as to allow for a maximum amount of space. Furthermore, 74 instead of one large central building encompassing all of the Humanities and Arts several smaller structures, each with its individual sphere of influence, would be built. First was an Arts building which was left largely open; movable partitions were then created (sometimes quite creatively) by students and these were used to delineate the individual student' s studio space. Space was alloted for a modest sculpture studio and viewing room as well as for faculty offices. The second of the buildings made housed music and dance facilities, with Key o 4 - ReCO{ding St'Jdio i-Practice Room 5 •. DallC&amp; Studlo 2 • Faculty Office 3 - RooitaJ Hall 6 - stora.ge individual practice rooms as well as a larger recital hall and two dance studios. Along with these first few structures a long bank of solar panels was built, creating a kind of roof over the central plaza area of the Arts Village as well as providing a 75 great deal of the heat and hot water for the Arts Village. The panels installed were paid for in part by a grant from the Energy Research and Development Administration's Solar Energy Division and utilized a new form of solar panel. Instead of the typical silicon pan- els favored nowadays the Arts Village panels con- sisted of serles of glass tubes placed along Inlet manifolds; circulation piping brought water along these tubes and heated the water. Although effective an oil fired system was installed as a backup; years later the cost of upkeep on the panels forced the college to abandon the use of them. The Film and Photography building was the third of a proposed five structures; a large gallery space on the first floor was faced by doorways to photographic studios, editing rooms, and a corridor leading to the darkrooms. Although one large darkroom is reserved for Division I students Division II and III students are afforded time ln individual darkrooms. Further plans for the Arts Village had included a dramatic performance space and a graphic arts and environmental design building, however, the school found that it could not at the time afford further buildings. Some time later a fourth building was added to the Arts Village; this new building, named after Hampshire's third 76 president, became the horne of the School of Communications and Cog- nitive Sciences (nee the School of Language Stud- ies). CCS had previously occupied space in the lower levels of FPH; faculty offices had occupied the ground level while several small cognitive labs were crowded into the basement. Much of the computer sciences at Hampshire had been taken over by the school and so for the new building a great deal of attention was paid to the needs, current and future, of the computer resources of the campus. Not only would space and proper electrical and data connections be necessary but extensive climate control would be crucial. Because many of the comput- ers in use by the school were personal computers linked into the school's mainframe (located in the library center) large spaces such as had been provided for in the library were unnecessary. Furthermore, as much of the work to be done on the computers would be done by a limited number of students it was not necessary for the computer lab to be large enough to allow access to all of Hampshire's student population. Several small behavioral labs were included as part of the program as well as two video editing labs. A small elec- tronics lab and an audio lab were placed on either side of these facilities on the second floor. Two classrooms fill the 77 western side of the second floor while a larger one resides directly undreneath them. A medium sized lecture hall was also included on the first floor with video projection capabili- ties; here, videotapes may be watched on a large screen or a personal computer may be hooked up to the same system, allow- ing for computer lectures to be projected for the entire class to see. Emily Dickenson Hall stands on the north side of Hamp- shire, sandwiched between Greenwich and Enfield on a low rise overlooking the wetlands to the east. Built dur- ing the second set of Greenwich construction, this low wooden building houses faculty offices and classrooms for the school of Humanities and Arts as well as two "black Box" theatres and support facilites for the theatre department (construction and cos- tume shops, dressing rooms, and storage) Originally the building housed several classrooms, faculty offices, and a snack bar. During the latter part of the 70s the building was renovated 78 to accomodate more of the school of Humanities and Arts; the snack bar was removed and two stripped down, "black box" theater spaces were created with support spaces, several of the classrooms were remodeled (including the creation of a design studio via the combination of three former classroom spaces), and several new faculty offices were added. In the original proposal for the Arts Village Juster Pope Associates proposed a series of five buildings, each of which could be built as funding became available. The first three buildings were built between 1973 and 1976, with ., ., • 1 • an aOOl1:.l0n made to the Music and Dance building being made several years later. The fourth building was to have been a theatre build- lng, complete with a formal proscenium stage. This building was never built for several reasons. First, much of the fund- lng which had been available for the college's earlier build- lngs had dried up and the school had extremely limited funds with which to work with. A further feeling was that such lavish facilities would not provide a Hampshire student with the kind of exploratory theatre experience that the school hoped to teach. The school was finding that a great many students went off campus to take theatre courses, especially at Smith college, which had just renovated and updated their theatre buildings. Hampshire found that many of these students, used to working with the latest in theater technology, lacked the ability to improvise when these materials were not available. "We felt that we might be making a mistake by building a big theater", recalls Howard 79 Paul, former head of physical plant. It was decided to build two smaller "black box" theatres which, although lacking many of the amenities and facilities found at larger theatres, fostered the spirit of "making do". Construction after 1972 was highly dependent on prior architecture as well as a very limited budget. With its later buildings Hampshire tried to patch some of the gaps in its physical environment as well as to accomodate the changing needs of its users. This, combined with a slackening of fundingces, pushed the designers at Hampshire to find new solutions under trying circumstances. Footnotes 1 Patterson, Franklin, The Making of a College, © 1966 The Trustees of Hampshire College, M.LT. Press, Cambridge, p. 209 2 Longsworth, Charles, in a memorandum, July 20,1972 3 Ibid. 4 Carroll, Bruce, and the Student Activities Committee of Hampshire College, in a memo- randum, March 1970 5 Patterson, Franklin, The making of a College, © 1966 The Trustees of Hampshire College, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, p.208 6 Transcript of The Physical History of Hampshire College: a Symposium in Honor of Stiles Day, November 3, 1989 Picture Credits Page 64 Kyakers in Robert crown Center Swimming Pool. Archival Photo courtesy of Office of Public Relations Photographic Files, HC/Archives VP5.S6 #2 &amp; #3 Page 65 South Elevation, Robert Crown Center. Courtesy Davis, Brody Associates, 1973 80 Page 66 Floor Plans, First and Second Floors, Robert Crown Center. Courtesy Davis, Brody Associ- ates, 1973. Page 68 Interior View, Multisports Center. Photograph by Mark Oribello Page 69 Interior View from west of Bridge Cafe. Photograph by Mark Oribello Page 74 Proposed Humanities and Arts Building. Courtesy Ashley, Myer, and Smith, Inc., 1974 Page 75 Floor Plan, First Floor, Music and Dance Building. Courtesy Juster, Pope, Frazier Associ- ates, 1975 Page 76 Detail, Solar Panel Bulbs, Courtesy Juster, Pope, Frazier Associates, 1975 Page 77 Adele Simmons Hall, Main Entrance, from the northwest. Photograph by Mark Oribello Page 78 Exterior view from the southeast, Emily Dickenson Hall. Photograph by Mark Oribello 81 Chapter 6 Conclusion 82 The Hampshire College Campus is one which was planned according to unique educational precepts and is therefore by necessi ty different from most other college campuses. Not only was it necessary for the academic buildings to embrace this new philosophy but the social life of the college's student population differed enough from the norm that the school's living and social spaces also required a great deal of flexibility. Furthermore, Hampshire realized that, al- though the buildings they created were sufficient for its needs at the time, the needs of the college and the needs of the users would change greatly as the school grew. Therefore, Hampshire required buildings and a campus that was not only flexible but also changeable and adaptable. The choice of Hugh Stubbins as an architect for the school was an interesting one; as the former head of physical plant remarked, "With Hugh Stubbins you knew what you were getting"l Many would say that Hampshire, the experimenting school, might have done better with an experimenting archi- tect, one who would possibly have gone ln entirely new and unique directions in architecture. Instead the school chose an architect known for his distinctive albeit staid style of modernist architecture. Stubbins' even, somewhat predictable style did serve as an anchor for the school from a physical point of view; one had but to look at Hampshire's first buildings to realize that they said "institutional". Anyone conversant with the area would also recognize the same style of building as that at the University of Massachusetts or 83 Mount Holyoke College. Thus, although Stubbins' buildings may be accused lacking the radical departure from traditional thought encouraged at Hampshire it did lend a sense of connectiveness to Hampshire's supporting colleges. In the late 1960's money was easy to obtain, and hardly a day went by that a new gift or federal loan did not arrive at the President's office. Hampshire grew vigorously, hoping to arrive at a student population that could reliably keep Hamp- shire afloat fiscally. Phase I construction of Stubins' mono- lithic yet expensive buildings progressed at an almost fe- vered pitch; between 1968 and 1971 most of the major buildings on campus were built. The buildings conformed to Stubbins' master plan of a sprawling, urbanistic campus that had been requested by Charles Longsworth and Franklin Patterson in The Making of a College. Residential and light academic buildings (those requiring little or no special equipment) were set around a central core, again in response to The Making of a College. In this, Stubbins' master plan responded well to the wishes and desires of the college. As the Hampshire project wore on Hideo Sasaki was edged out and Stubbins took full control of the campus plan, laying out the ring road which kept the campus a largely bicycle oriented campus and kept cars on the periphery of the school, however, a strong sense of arrival was still lacking as this ring road dumped visitors either far away from the central campus or at the back door of a building. This has still not been resolved; the central core continues to be the major hub of activity on the campus but 84 many people did not use bicycles and feel that the distances between the core and the residential areas is too far to walk, especially during the harsh New England winters. The early part of the 1970s saw a decline in the amount of money that Hampshire had for new construction; inflation and a declining economy caused Hampshire to realize that their funds had fallen dangerously short. Furthermore, the latest fad in student living was off campus housing; if Hampshire were to maintain the required number of on campus students needed to remain financially secure they needed to address both of these problems. Inexpensive modular housing enabled the college to provide students with autonomous living while still remaining on campus. Furthermore, the sections of the house could be constructed at a factory while the foundations were being poured, saving time in the process. This system proved to be popular enough that it was continued, with Hamp- shire building their last three residential clusters in this manner. These clusters were placed around the periphery of the central core, further establishing the boundaries of the cam- pus. Stubbins' plan was now seen as largely impractical due to cost overruns and changing student needs; nevertheless, the school's original construction continued to have an impact on its later construction. The Robert Crown Center was placed adjacent to the library and plans were made for a connecting building that would house the school of Humanities and Arts. In doing so the college was attempting to create a coherent 85 center of campus as well as establishing a focal/arrival point for the college. Unfortunately funding was not adequate for the construction of the Humanities and Arts building which would have created a true quadrangle in the traditional sense. Again, financial reasons proved the prime motivation for the college's next set of buildings; denied a building in the center of campus H&amp;A still needed space to live and spread out. The solution arrived at was a series of inexpensive shells which could accommodate a wide variety of endeavors and which could be built one at a time as funding became avail- able. The "Arts Village" as it came to be called, was one of the last major pieces of college construction, with an addi- tional building being erected in the late 1980s to house the school of Communications and Cognitive Sciences. Later con- struction also included a Day Care Center for faculty and staff of the college and a tennis building which, it was hoped, would bring in additional funding for the school through public memberships. Hampshire College appears at first to be a chaotic and sprawling campus, left over from an initial burst of building and eventually dribbling out to nothing. Distances between buildings is sometimes inconvenient, especially in inclement weather, and many of the original buildings appear drab in comparison to architecture built today. Yet there is a certain logical progression to the campus; the housing buildings stand apart from the central core, which in turn attempts to provide for most of the academic needs of the campus. The Arts Vil- 86 lage, while somewhat apart from the other buildings on campus, still presents the feeling of a small New England Village. Rather than a unified front like that at Amherst College, whose every brick faced building says "tradition", Hampshire's archi tecture leads one through a wide variety of discreet experiences, from the rural setting of Greenwich to the urbanistic Arts Village and back through the somewhat tradi- tional Merrill quadrangle. Footnotes 1 Paul, Howard, in an interview with Mark Oribello, April 20, 1995 87 Appendix A Construction Time Line 0 0 Franklin Patterson Hall Adele Simmons Hall 0 Johnson Library Center 0 Merrill House 0 Cole Science Building 0 Dakin House 0 Greenwich House 0 EmilY Dickenson Hall 0 Emily Dickenson Hall (Renovation) 0 Enfield House 0 Robert Crown Center 0 Prescott House 0 Charles Longsworth Arts Village I'==;' I I I I I I II I ;r-'~, I I I I II I I I I I I I I I co co o ..- co ..- C\J C\J ~ C"') ~ 0\ 0 I"- \0 \0 I"- 0\ 0 It) l 0\ C"") co co co co co co co co co I"- I"- I"- I"- r"'-- r"'-- r"'-- r"'-- r"'-- r"'-- ~ \0 \0 0\ 0\ 0\ 0\ 0\ 0\ 0\ 0\ 0\ 0\ 0\ 0\ 0\ 0\ ..... ..... ..... ..... 0\ ..... ..... 0\ 0\ 0\ 0\ ..... 0\ ..... 0\ 0\ 0\ ..... .,.. ...... ...... ,.... ,... ,... ,... ...-- ....... ,... ,.... ..... -,..- "- , o • Appendix B Bibliography Bibliography Birney, Robert, Hampshire College Planning Bulliten #8: Man in Situ, © June 1969 The Trustees of Hampshire College Ludman, Dianne, Hugh Stubbins and his Associates: The First Fifty Years, © 1986 The Stubbins Associates, Inc. Lyon, Richard, Hampshire College Planning Bulli ten #9: Foreign Studies, © June 1969 The Trustees of hampshire College Patterson, Franklin, The Making of a College, © 1966 The Trustees of Hampshire College, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, MA Rush, Sean and Johnson, Sandra, The Decaying American Campus: A Ticking Time Bomb, © 1989 The Association of Physical Plant Administrators of Universities and Colleges Smith, Francis, Hampshire College Planning Bulliten #6: The Proper Study of Mankind - Reconsidered, © April 1969 The Trustees of Hampshire College Stubbins, Hugh, Architecture - The Design Expreience, © 1976 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Inc., New York Taylor, Robert, Hampshire College Planning Bulliten #7: The Hampshire College Library, © 1968 The Trustees of Hampshire College Taylor, Robert, The Making of a Library: The Academic Library in Transi tion, © 1970 The Trustees of Hampshire College, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge Interview with Howard Paul by Mark Oribello, April 20, 1995 Material from the Hampshire College Archives President Charles R. Longsworth. Architecture Files. HC I Archives PR2.S3 Boettiger, John, Notes on Architecture and the Hampshire Community, April 13, 1967 Boettiger, John, A Brief Addendum to an Earlier Memo on Architecture and the Hampshire Community, May 19, 1967 And Still More Thoughts Matz, David, Memorandum: on Architecture, May 26, 1967 Hampshire Architecture, May 25, Matz, David, Memorandum: 1967 Longsworth, Charles, Hampshire College: House III, June 16, 1969 Cohen, Laura, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, Dec. 16, 1970 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Franklin Patterson, May 25, 1967 Boettiger, John, Memorandum to Franklin Patterson, May 29, 1967 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Charles Swift II, Jan. 29, 1968 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Franklin Patterson, Oct. 17, 1966 Walters, Jerome B., Memorandum to David Matz, Feb. 23, 1968 Rosenthal, Kenneth, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, April 28, 1967 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Franklin Patterson, July 27, 1967 David, Memorandum: Opinions Gleaned from the Yale Matz, Visit, to Charles Longsworth, May 10, 1967 United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, College Housing Program, no date United States Department of Housing and Human Development, Abstract from HUD College Housing Handbook, Project Development (RHA 7830.1 Supp.), Oct. 1969 united States Department of Housing and Human Development, Abstract from General Services Administration Handbook, Chapter 12 (PBS P 3410.5), June 12, 1968 Juster, Pope Associates, Planning Notes #1, Aug. 29, 1972 Sasaki, Hideo, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, March 17, 1966 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to the Trustees of Hampshire College, June 1, 1966 Galehouse, Richard, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, May 26, 1966 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Franklin Patterson, Re: Student Housing Strategy and Action, Feb. 20, 1968 Patterson, Franklin, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, Re: College Growth and Student Housing, Feb. 21, 1968 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Stanley Snider, June 20, 1968 Manchester, Barbara, Student Housing Questionnaire Report, Sept .. 6, 1972 Wheeler, Elizabeth, Hampshire College News, Oct. 22, 1969 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to all professional staff, Re: Hampshire College House II Residential, Nov. 22, 1968 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Stanley Snider, June 24, 1968 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Richard Galehouse, Dec. 23, 1968 Galehouse, Richard, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, Re: Hampshire College, Dec. 13, 1968 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Harold Johnson, Dec. 24, 1968 The Stubbins Associates, Conference Report, Dec. 12, 1968 Rosenthal, Kenneth, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, Re: House II Residential - Report of a Meeting an Architecture, Dec. 13, 1968 Rosenthal, Kenneth, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, Re: Meeting with the Architects, Feb. 17, 1969 Longsworth, Charles, Hampshire College - House III, June 16, 1969 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to John Myer, Nov. 3, 1969 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to John Myer, July 30, 1969 Myer, John, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, Re: Report of questions of letter of July 30th, 1969, regarding House III, Hampshire College, Aug. 11, 1969 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Franklin Patterson, Re: House III an a University Residential Building System (URBS) Based Project, Jan. 26, 1970 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to the file, Re: Conversation with Richard Ulf, BUD, by Phone, Jan. 26, 1970 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to the file, Re: Washington, D.C. Discussions re College Housing Loan Support - House III, Jan. 26, 1970 Huxtable, Ada Louise, Model Homes for Americans, The New York Times, Feb. 28, 1970 Myer, John, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, Re: Some aspects regarding the use of the URBS system in the building of House III, Feb. 9, 1970 Aquadro, Robert, Memorandum to Ashley, Myer, Smith, Inc., Re: Hampshire College House III - Dining Commons III, Nov. 18, 1970 Ashley, Myer, Smith, Inc., Meeting Report, Hampshire College Dining Commons, House III, Nov. 27, 1970 Myer, John, Memorandum to Laura Cohen, Dec. 7, 1970 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Franklin Patterson, Re: House III, Dec. 17, 1970 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Committee on Architecture and Campus Planning, Re: House III, Jan. 19, 1971 Smi th, Douglas, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, Re: Hampshire House III URBS, May 7, 1971 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Edward Pollack, Re: Hampshire College Turnkey Project, May 7, 1971 Hugh Stubbins and Associates, Conference Report, May 17, 1971 Wright, Jonathan, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, May 25, 1971 Rosenthal, Kenneth, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, Re: On the Rent in the Modules, June 25, 1971 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Harold Gores, Aug. 2, 1971 Gores, Harold, Memorandum to Franklin Patterson, May 14, 1970 Stephenson, Mark, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, Re: Planned Parking Lot West of Modules, May 15, 1972 Myer, John, Memorandum to Designers and users of Hampshire College House III, Re: A preliminary listing of issues relating to the selection of site for House III, July 21, 1969 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to The Trustees of Hampshire College, Re: House IV (URBS), July 31, 1971 Ashley / Myer / Smith, Inc., Hampshire College House V Program Report, July 11, 1972 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Dudley Woodall and Kenneth Rosenthal, Re: House V Dining, Sept. 5, 1972 Ashley / Myer / Smith, Meeting Report, July 11, 1972 Porter, Tyrus, Memorandum to Victor Lloyd, Aug. 28, 1972 Crabtree, Samuel, Memorandum to Hampshire College, Re: House V Food Service Facility, Aug. 23, 1972 Sullivan, Michael, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, March 28, 1972 Rosenthal, Kenneth, Memorandum to Edward Thomas, Re: CH-Mass. 180(D) - Hampshire College House V, Aug. 21, 1973 House Paul, Howard, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, Re: Five Master's House, June 5, 1973 House V Staff, Memorandum to Occupants of Apt. 78, Re: Loft Construction and Financing Thereof, Nov. 1, 1973 The Trustees of Hampshire College, Rationale and Preliminary Specifications for Learning Spaces at Hampshire College, Sept. 1967 Patterson, Franklin, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, Re: Administrative Offices for Academic Year 1971 - 72 and after, Oct. 21, 1970 Hampshire Jones, Edwin, Memorandum to Chester Penza, Re: College, May 6, 1968 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Hugh Stubbins, Sept. 6, 1967 Hampshire College: The Natural Science Facility, March 2, 1969 Park, David, Notes, Feb. 15, 1968 Lieberfeld, Lawrence, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, Feb. 15, 1969 Hampshire College Natural Hugh Stubbins and Associates, Science Project Davis, Brody, &amp; Associates, Outline Specifications, Nov. 2, 1972 "Hampshire College's Robert Crown Center Opened to Students", Sites and Specs, Dec. 1974, p.5 Paul, Howard, Memorandum to Anthony Louvis, Feb. 1, 1974 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to The Faculty, Re: A Few Hot Financial Flashes, Aug. 20, 1974 Rosenthal, Kenneth, Memorandum to Nancy Eddy, Aug. 9, 1974 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to Davis, Brody, and Associates, July 31, 1972 Davis, Brody, and Associates, Minutes of Meeting, Nov. 27, 1972 Longsworth, Charles, Athletic Recreation Center, July 20, 1972 Davis, Brody, and Associates, Minutes of Meeting, Jan. 17, 1973 Paul, Howard, Memorandum to Charles Longsworth, Re: Recreation Building Budget, March 30, 1973 Smi th, Francis, The School of Humani ties and Arts in Hampshire College, April, 1973 Francis Smith, Memorandum to Whom it May Concern as Architectural Planners for H&amp;A, Re: The Humanities and Arts Learning Environment at Hampshire College Smith, Francis, Memorandium to Davis &amp; Brody, Norton Juster, and Earl Pope, Re: The Humanities and Arts learning environment at Hampshire College, Aug. 10, 1972 Rosenthal, Kenneth, Memorandium to Melanie Shorts, Nov. 4, 1975 Pferd, Martha, Memorandium to Franklin Patterson, June 28, 1973 The Trustees of Hampshire College, Program for the H&amp;A Master Plan Juster, Pope, Associates, Program for the Center for Human Development, June 28, 1972 Juster, Pope, Associates, Program for the Center for Community Affairs, June 28, 1972 The Trustees of Hampshire College, A Proposal to the Energy Research and Development Administration, Division of Solar Energy, Nov. 25, 1975 Transcript with Interview with Howard Paul, Ruth Hammen, and Sheila Moos, Nov. 3, 1989 Transcript of interview of Howard Atkins by Charles Longsworth, from A Documentary History of Hampshire College, edited by Susan Dayall Stiles, Robert, The Planning and Beginning of Hampshire College Material from files of Trustee winthrop S. Dakin, Naming Committee, HC I Archives BTl. Sl #3 Patterson, Franklin, Memorandum to The Trustees of Hampshire College (Except Harold F. Johnson), Re: The Naming of the College Library, Sept. 21, 1970 Patterson; Franklin; MemorandQm to The Trustees of Hampshire College, Re: Naming our Buildings, Sept. 6, 1970 Patterson, Franklin, Memorandum to The Trustees of Hampshire College, Re: Naming Our Buildings, Oct. 20, 1970 Johnson, Harold, Memorandum to Board of Trustees, Hampshire College, Oct. 13, 1970 Dakin, Winthrop, Memorandum to The Committee to Propose Names for Hampshire College Buildings, Re: Call of First Meeting, Aug. 27, 1973 Material from files of Charles R. Longsworth, Trustee Committee on the Naming of Buildings, HC I Archives PR2. S4 #5. Sl #3 Longsworth, Charles, Memorandum to The Trustees of Hampshire College, Re: Identification of Building Names, April 6, 1973 AppendixC Interview with Charles Longsworth Telephone interview with Mr. Charles Longsworth, former president of Hampshire College, by Mark Oribello M.a.: This is an Interview with Mr. Charles Longsworth on May first, and, um, Mr. Longsworth, when were you with the school? C. L.: When? M.a.: From when to when? C.L.: Uh ... I, ah, started with the, ah, effort ln early 1965 and I was there until July of 1977 M.a.: Um, So you were responsible, initially, from what I have read of your files for much of the architecture at Hampshire? C. L.: Well, I originally started in si te selection which I guess is the first phase of the architecture, deciding where we probably ought to try to locate the place and I really, really spent a lot of time on that and settled on the location we have because of its proximi ty to the other four insti tutions of course which is a principle requirement for Hampshire to exist. And because it looked to me like there was land in that Hadley / Amherst area where we are that could be purchased. M.a.: And roughly how long did it take you to acquire this land? C. L.: It took about eighteen months ... there were I think eighteen different owners ... that was a very interesting process but it worked out very well. The key piece, of course, was the Stiles farm which is where the library is located, where Stiles House is located, where the main academic buildings actually are located. M. 0.: Um ... so why exactly did you choose that other than proximity? Was there a reason that you chose that area? C.L.: Well, it was very undeveloped ... if you look at the, I don't know how well you know the roads, Mark, but if you go down West street which is where the entrance is, the front entrance, and then up Bay road 1 to the back entrance, and all the way down to, I guess it's Maple street in Hadley and then turn north again to Moody Bridge road and then come east again, that whole sector is this couple thousand acres was at the time very undeveloped. It's not of course much developed now where we own the land because we precluded that but it looked like you didn't have to worry about dealing with too many owners; there were some big tracts and you didn't have to worry about houses that would continue to exist in the middle of the campus because it was almost all agricultural. Really an ideal spot to begin. M. 0.: Of those original, of those houses on the campus, how many were kept ... I know that there were a couple of structures removed from the campus but that there are still a goodly amount of original houses. C.L.: Well, I think the only houses that were removed were over there in Hadley on Bay Road. On the main part of the campus the Stiles House and then, so called you know which that is of course, and then the Warner House, and the house that Bob Stiles lived in, the so called Montague House, I guess that's still there isn't it? Yep. M. 0.: And then his brick house across the road is C. L.: still there and then if you go North the Paul Thorpe house is still there, so, and Andy Wineczk's house over on Bay road is still there. I don't know of any house except maybe down further west on Bay road on the south side there might have been a house removed in there. But that's all I know of. M.O.: If I could change the subject a little bit? Go ahead. C. L.: M.O.: In The Making of a College that I believe you and former president Franklin Patterson prepared it discussed an urban campus, as it were. Yes. C.L.: M.O.: Why exactly was that desirable? 2 C. L.: Well, I d have to go back and look at that I discussion to get it in context, but by urban I think we were simply talking about a ... a densely, rather densely populated campus where there could be interaction and proximity of people and ideas as well as efficiency for building relationships and interchange; since we're out there in the country we didn't want to spread things out so much that people had to stagger through the snow or never saw anyone. M.O.: There is a ... one of the things that came up in my discussions with Howard Paul was that there was an idea of Hampshire being a bicycle campus. Was that, at any point, really a major design consideration? C.L.: Well, it was a major design consideration. . uh ... I don't recall specific discussion of that but the equivalent of that is to try to preclude its being as heavily populated by automobiles as some campuses and so we did create that ring road, and there was a big argument about whether to put any parking inside the ring road as you now have up there behind the Arts Village and so forth. The automobile is a great threat to campuses and we were aware of that and we were working to try to not have it be visible from every point on the campus. I think we did reasonably well; if you look at the Amherst campus there are automobiles right packed into the very center of that campus much to my distress because I'm chairman of the board at Amherst. M.O.: Why ... or How and Why was Hugh Stubbins chosen as the first architect for the campus? C.L.: Well, how he was chosen ... there weren't many of us, remember that, there were just a few people, and among us we decided on whom, we decided what architects we ought to look at and we were going to look at five or six, six or seven different architects and I guess that was based on reputation and somebody knew a building someone had done, like Ben Thompson, for example, who was a well known architect, still is, and had done a number of college and university and school buildings. So we assembled a little list and then Harold Johnson and Patterson and, I think Winthrop Dakin, and I, went touring, and we went visiting the architects and listened to presentations and looked at their buildings and looked at their brochures and the consensus, and I think this was led 3 primarily by Harold Johnson, was that Stubbins was the right guy for us, so we chose Hugh Stubbins. M.O.: Was there anything in particular that stood out as special about him? C.L.: Well, uh, I don't really remember what buildings of his we saw. I think he had done a theater at Harvard or Radcliffe or maybe a library at Harvard or Radcliffe that we liked, and I don't remember what other college or university buildings he had done at the time. That style that you see at Hampshire in the early buildings was very much in vogue in the sixties, that concrete frame wi th brick infills, and he was certainly doing that as were some of the other archi tects we looked at. We thought their planning capability was pretty good and they teamed up well with Sasaki, whom we had in mind, had had help from in the making of the college and initial thinking about the campus. Wasn't anything very profound about it ... it wasn't a long, carefully researched process, it wasn't a competition, it was just a bunch of people who went to see a few archi tects and said 'I think this is our person' (laughs) And we did it. M.O.: In your opinion, sort of looking back, how well do you think Stubbins brought the philosophy from The Making of a College to sort of a physical being? C.L.: If you look at some of the other buildings and the successor architects I think you can see from what we did that we thought, uh, we were getting too much monumentality and inflexibility from Stubbins. If you look at Prescott house, for example, I don't know how well that's worked out but it was certainly an effort to create a variety of spaces and a lot more interest and a lot more possibility of integrating social and academic life than is possible in the formality of Dakin and urn, what's the name of the other house? M.O.: Merrill House? C.L.: Yeah, Merrill. And those were really modeled, those were kind of modeled on the Harvard / Yale principle - a Master's residence and a proximate, a very proximate house with some amenities. But Stubbins turned out to be a pretty inflexible guy. We, uh, for example, he wanted to design the room interiors and the furni ture and then bol t the furni ture to the 4 floors; and I set off in a different direction and got that modular furni ture designed and buil t which I thought gave people a certain amount of flexibility; I don't know how long that lasted or whether that's still there or if anybody uses it or likes it but, so, I think, I don't think it was a triumphal decision to have chosen Stubbins. They did a responsible job but I think it was a ... it wasn't a very faithful representation of what we had in mind. I actually think the, urn, what Greenwich, I think Greenwich expressed a lot better what we were trying to do even though it was not gonna last us long. M.a.: Well, when did the sort of, whole physical campus start to shift from being wholly Stubbins' monumental architecture? C.L.: Well, after we built, I think Cole was the last building to be built, wasn't it? We built Cole, and Johnson, and Patterson, and Dakin and Merrill, and I think that was it. M. 0.: Was there a conscious decision to move ln a different direction? C.L.: Well, there was, sure, yeah. Very much so. When I became president, and as we began to realize the place, why, it was a very conscious decision to get architects who were more imaginative and more flexible and to create some architecture that's more fun, and would reflect what we were trying to do which was create an integrated community with lots of options for students instead of the very limited options that were in Merrill and Dakin. M.a.: What were your feelings about the campus while it was being put down on paper? What were some sort of major emotions, as it were, or what philosophies that you wanted to see in this campus? C. L.: Ah, boy, you know, you're trying to ... you're asking me to recall things that occurred twenty five years ago and I'll tell you, the major, the major emotion we had was anxiety about get ting the place built and opened, and every year having new housing and new classroom space so we could keep growing, because if we did not grow it to about thirteen to fifteen hundred in four years we were gonna go out of business. So it was not a leisurely exercise in 5 reflective thinking about ... just what step would best manifest the Hampshire philosophy. We weren't ignoring that, but our real concern was, 'Can we get this damn place built and opened in a suitable form that will continue to serve the students and the faculty well' And that was a real struggle because every fall we had to have a new dormitory ready to go. I think, however, there were some overriding considerations, for example, the proximity of the library and the Crown Center. Now that was a very conscious and I think, good, decision to try to recognize that you don't compartmentalize life on a campus. You don't put ... the life of the mind isn't the center and then on the periphery you put the life of the body and spirit, uh, these things all work together and you ought to be able to move among them freely. That was a very conscious decision, a conscious decision to create Cole as a super flexible building; we had to fight the scientists on that because scientists want to have dedicated space that's peculiar to each of their interests and we wanted to have space that could be modified as different people came along and as the disciplines changed. Obviously there was a great deal of excitement, that was probably another major emotion ... as we went. M.O.: In your opinion, were there any sort of major departures from the philosophy of the school? I realize you've touched on some of the inflexibility of some of Stubbins' architecture. C. L.: Right. M. 0.: Do you feel that, on the whole, the campus reflects to some degree the sort of guiding principles you and Franklin Patterson tried to ... C.L.: Oh, I think very much so, as it evolved, because I think the Arts Village is probably one of the best manifestations of it. The buildings are not formidable, they're informal, they're flexible, they're accommodating, they welcome use, they're not expensive, uh, that's the kind of architecture we should have created from the first place, rather then the sort of heavier, and monumental ... they're almost pyramidal in their life (laughs) dormitories or houses. I think as we went we did pretty well, I'm really quite pleased with how the thing evolved as we went along. I have no idea, because I'm not really 6 current on Hampshire, whether the buildings are regarded as successful from the student's and faculty's point of view, but obviously I hope they would be. M.O.: I think a lot of students, from what I have seen in research, tend to overlook the parts that they like, and sort of fixate on the more difficult parts, the inflexibility of some of the rooms ... C.L.: Yeah, we did create, I think, going back to give Stubbins credit, I think we created some very successful lecture spaces in Patterson. I think those rooms worked well, I don't know how they're used now, maybe the current mode of teaching doesn't employ them, but for what was going on at the time, those were very advanced sorts of rooms, and very useful. M.O.: Did you have sort of a vision of how students would react on a social level, in a general sense, when you were planning these buildings and you were planning the campus? C.L.: Well, you know, remember, Patterson was president, and he had a view, I think, that was strongly influenced by Oxford and Cambridge and Harvard and Yale of a facility that accommodated a benign mastership and eager students. I don't think that the campus was envisioned for the kind of students who came there in the sixties, who were totally irreverent and totally independent, and were going to remake it according to what they thought was right no matter what kind of bricks and mortar were there. (laugh) M.O.: Do you have sort of a ... there were the questions I had .... Do you have any thoughts on the campus in general? My paper isn't so much on a historical level, when things were built but rather why things were built, and I'm trying to get insight from people who were involved in that. C.L.: Well my view of the campus is that the road, the ring road, is too wide and too much like a highway, and that the arrival is entirely too dramatic; it's like arriving at some kind of a Taj Majal, to come up and look in to those big buildings. I would have preferred that you kind of find yourself on the campus after driving in. It's not a celebratory drive up the 7 great introductory road like going into a huge southern plantation. I'd like to just find yourself on the campus in a much more rural setting, smaller scale, uh, more intimate than it is. And with more buildings, more and smaller buildings. You can't help but have buildings of some size and a library and science space and so forth but I think those buildings were backward looking rather than forward looking. M.a.: Do you think the later architecture, the mods, C.L.: They're much more what like I'm talking about. One of the interesting things that, this is perhaps an aside, but we had very, very good cost control, Howard Paul did a fabulous job on that, and we did not run over our budgets much at all and that was absolutely essential if we were going to be able to do this because money was clearly limited. The fact the place got built as it did was something like a miracle, I think, and it's served as well as it has, with the deficiencies that I've mentioned. M.a.: There were several buildings that weren't built, one was the Humani ties and Arts building, which I found very interesting. C. L.: I '11 tell you what happened there i that was simple, and we were lucky. We started out with a great big building, a big, big building, a building to house all of the arts and some of the Humani ties, and we were having trouble raising money for it. It was during a period of high inflation and we actually found that the building cost was escalating faster than we were raising money, and it finally occurred to me that the only way to do this was to break it into pieces and do one piece at a time. That's what we did, so that's how we started with a painting building, and then we did the dance studio, and eventually Photography building and we got it done eventually because we took off, we did one bite at a time, and it turned out to be a better result, I think. M.a.: The other building that was never built that I found somewhat interesting was the student pavilion, which, on the original master plan appears. C.L.: Yes, sort of a student center idea. 8 M.O.: It originally appeared on the east side of the Merrill Quad and then moved across the street ... C.L.: We were on the verge of it several times, but it was a mat ter of two things, one, money, and two, whether this was really something that would be used. It S very, very hard for college administrations to 1 create spaces for students that the students want, and the most successful thing like that I've seen was at Williams college where they just had an old barn, like our Red Barn, and students just took it over and did what they wanted to with it. M.O.: Well, that's pretty much it for me, thank you very much C.L.: You're welcome. Nice chatting with you. 9