---

As part of a $65M multi-phase project, Purdue is renovating its Windsor Halls: Five women's residences that are quite old (buildings built between 1930-1950, mostly), linked by underground tunnels. This brief article by an architect working on the project, Sanford E, Garner, is from University Business magazine.

An external and an internal image of part of the work (Phase II, Duhme Hall) are available. Here is a brief report on landscaping and here is the overall master plan for the campus.

‘New’ doesn’t necessarily mean better. Shiny and new does have its appeal. But Windsor Halls also has a place in Purdue’s history. Students like to know that famous people, such as Amelia Earhart, once stayed there. That history was preserved during the renovation. Date rooms, once used for young women to meet their dates as men weren’t allowed on the residence hall floors, have been replaced by common areas. The renovation included restoring the ornate coffin ceiling, original woodwork, formal fireplaces, window seats and the fieldstone floors. The character of the residence halls was preserved in a variety of ways throughout the collegiate-Tudor-style facilities. Students want and need their privacy. After all, most students grew up with their own rooms and private bathrooms. When possible, we worked to create more private rooms and bathrooms. Because of the age of the buildings, however, we were limited by the mechanicals system to create an abundance of private rooms. To compensate, we used residential-style finishes and created more amenities so Windsor could compete with newer campus living options.

In College Planning & Management magazine, William S. Harris uses case studies of MIT's Building 10 and Brown University's Lyman Hall to illustrate how "renovations of iconic campus environments can look great and perform well without breaking the bank."

Both institutions had limited budgets and schedules fixed to the summer recess, since neither institution could operate without these facilities in active use during the school year. The task and challenge of each project was therefore to exercise restraint, prioritize a menu of possible improvements ranging from structure and infrastructure to layout and function, and to implement those within the tight budget and schedule. In addition, being iconic and treasured buildings in an academic environment, there was no shortage of input from administration, faculty, and students.

Despite the challenges and differences in programs, sizes, and budges, each project was approached in a way that balanced their myriad competing priorities and resulted in success. This process can be distilled into the following guiding principles.

This is really cool, from the Chronicle's Building & Grounds blog - with data from the Chronicle's online database of new buildings and renovations, you should make sure your projects get in there - the Wilson College Complex for Science, Mathematics, and Technology, was to preserve the Victorian Gothic character of the campus while creating a modern science facility that meets LEED sustainability standards.

Take a look:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/architecture/2799/renovation-a-modern-science-facility-in-victorian-garb

---

Related: NEW BOOK, Planning Successful Museum Building Projects, published by formed SCUP President, L. Carole Wharton.

---

Former SCUP president Cal Audrain, now retired from the Art Institute of Chicago, was deeply involved in this project. Here is a New York Times article on the architect, Renzo Piano, and what the institute called "the Modern Wing."

The new $294 million Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, which opens on Saturday, is the closest Mr. Piano has come in at least a decade to achieving this near-classical ideal. Its delicate structural frame is a sparkling counterpart to the museum’s 1893 Beaux Arts building. The light-filled galleries show the Art Institute’s marvelous collections of postwar and contemporary art in their full glory, including many works that have been buried in storage for decades. Most of all, the addition manages to weave the various strands of Chicago’s rich architectural history into a cohesive vision, one that is made more beautiful by its remarkable fragility.

The 264,000-square-foot wing is the largest expansion in the museum’s 130-year history. The addition stands behind the original building, across a set of commuter railroad tracks. The two structures are joined by a small gallery building from 1916 that bridges the tracks. Millennium Park, its far end punctuated by the swirling steel forms of Frank Gehry’s band shell, extends to the north.

It is the Art & Architecture Building renovations that are thr subject of Lawrence Biemiller's post in The Chronicle of Higher Education's Buildings & Grounds Blog:

[I]t has been “a project with a thousand surprises” — partly because Rudolph’s contract with the university had permitted him to make an unlimited number of changes, many of them undocumented, while the building was under construction. Most famously, perhaps, the eight-story building ended up with 37 levels, counting a multi-level terrace, stair landings for which Rudolph designed bench seats, and a penthouse with spectacular views of the Yale campus. The complexity of the renovation, along with Mr. Stern and Mr. Gwathmey’s insistence on living up to Rudolph’s high standards, accounts for its $126-million price tag.

Renovation Versus New Construction: Key Factors to Consider, from Healthcare Design magazine:

"The first step in considering either renovation or new construction is to gather assumptions. Starting here rather than a 'goal-setting' meeting helps reveal the real goals of the stakeholders and allows assumptions to be tested. In the end, challenging assumptions allows for more creative problem solving and solutions to emerge as you weigh the options to renovate or build new. The next step is to define goals with clarity of purpose. Project goals are not cliches, but rather have specific desired outcomes - a difference shown in the table. Clearly defining goals helps to tie the project to the operational pathway. It is also important to prioritize goals and to specifically answer the question, "Our definition of success will be fill-in-the-blank.'"

Buildings that some people don't like are in the news a lot, lately.

A $130M renovation and expansion of the Art & Architecture Building at Yale University has some people scratching their heads and talking about a building that "was not beloved by anyone who was not an architecture student or faculty member" and is only still standing "because it would be too expensive to tear down." The article is by Lawrence Biemiller and in in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The image at left is from a page of images of this building published by Mary Ann Sullivan.

When the time came to decide between renovation and demolition, though, the building's unpopularity was outweighed by concerns about sustainability — tearing down a usable building is a LEED no-no — and by preservation advocates' newfound interest in well-known Modern structures. The renovation of the Art & Architecture Building comes on the heels of the Kahn gallery's $44-million renovation by Polshek Partnership Architects. Plans are also in the works for renovations of Eero Saarinen's two Yale residential colleges, Morse and Ezra Stiles, as well as of the 1963 Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.

"Yale was a leader in the 1950s in building Modernist buildings," Mr. Stern said, "and now it's a leader in restoring them." But each, he said, "presents gargantuan problems to its owners."

So far, though, the problems almost all appear to have been resolvable. Mr. Stern pointed out with glee that the Art & Architecture Building's notorious orange carpet is being replaced with new carpet woven especially for the project. "It's coming back," he grinned, "in its full orangeneity."

This item, "Dormitory Complex at Massachusetts Maritime," is part of a series from University Business titled "Sense of Place." The "problem" described below was "solved" with a $3.5 million for upgrades and $13 million for two-story addition. The series is useful and worth following:

- PROBLEMS: As enrollment grew at Mass Maritime-a public, co-ed maritime college in which the regimented lifestyle of cadets has traditionally required students to live on campus-it became clear that more beds were desperately needed. In fact, this school year nearly 1,000 students had to occupy a circa 1968 dorm complex designed to accommodate 880, reports Allen Hansen, vice president of Student Services. Even with students residing in every recreation room and study lounge, administrators still had to break tradition and allow a handful of students to commute. And with just one location on the 55-acre campus available for expansion-which officials hope to use for a new library complex-it seemed that a vertical expansion of the existing complex was the best bet.