20th Century Design, 21st Century Demands: A Transformation at Smith College
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The project team used the GreenFootStep the Rocky Mountain Institute created to assess the carbon footprint of the project. The team also developed a second methodology of it’s own creation for projecting the cost of the one-time embodied carbon offset. Built on a previously developed but verdant corner of the Smith College campus, the buildings are designed to harmonize with the surrounding landscape. All feature floor to ceiling windows and clerestories that invite abundant natural light and views into living spaces.
Building & Residential Services
The Massachusetts Building Code incorporates the 2012 International Energy Code, which governs the building enclosure requirements. There is also a “stretch code” that is available for each town to formally adopt if they choose (Whately has not done so) that encourages still higher minimum standards. The standards observed by the project — for example a specified blower-door test of the completed building enclosure at 1.0 ACH @ 50 pascals of pressure — is well beyond any current code standard. The proposal also added to the protection of the Northampton municipal water supply since the catchment for one of its reservoirs extended into the proposed protected land.
- Furthermore, nearly every feature of the building, from materials to accessories to furniture, has a backstory that connects to the Living Building Challenge®, Smith College, or the natural history of the area.
- Jessica Pollock completed a daylight study that helped the team determine whether the project really needed skylights that were originally designed but proved difficult to source.
- A campaign in 1913 involving the NAACP and Carrie Lee, a student who faced discrimination from Smith, became a precedent that allowed African-American women at the college equal rights to campus housing as their white counterparts.
- The interior renovation restored the midcentury heritage design through color palettes, carpet patterns and furnishings.
- City, college and community members collaborated in establishing development criteria for the replacement housing.
Barracks
The transformation of the historic Barracks building was completed in Fall 2009 and is suitable campus housing for 19 residents. This building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Smith’s plan for Paradise Road now includes demolishing four buildings to create vacant land for a new student housing complex. The housing would consist of five detached two-story structures housing 84 students, project manager Warren Cochrane of CSL Consulting told commissioners Monday. In the cleaning of your living spaces we use the most effective cleaning products that we can find, that are safe for you and the staff using them. As we deplete our present inventory, new products are reviewed and “green chemicals” are tested and used.
William Smith, the founder of the College, laid the cornerstone of this building. Built in 1863, Blackwell House was originally designed for William B. Douglas, a Hobart Trustee. It became the first residence hall at William Smith College in 1906. Suite B has eleven private suites with baths and forty-four suite rooms with shared baths.
Composting toilets and well-water from and returned to the site allow visitors to engage directly in the ecological processes that surround them. The solar panels are pole-mounted and adjusted by hand every month to ensure an optimal solar orientation. All of the building’s windows open manually, and all doors exit directly to the surrounding landscape.
At the Elm Street house, is under investigation, according to Shawn Denkiewicz, deputy fire chief for the Northampton Fire Department. Smoke could be seen emanating from the interior of the building, though sprinkler systems inside the house prevented further spreading and the fire had dissipated by noon. The landscaping around the building is purposefully comprised of stone found onsite and native plants typical to the New England forest-edge ecotone in which the building lies. There are both short and long views available from the building, and its surrounding outdoor spaces allow visitors to place themselves in the broader context of rural New England forest and farmland. The Bechtel Environmental Classroom at the Ada & Archibald MacLeish Field Station allows one to leave the urban area of Northampton and interact with the natural world. Designed as an educational site, the goal of the Field Station is to spark interest in and increase knowledge about nature through interdisciplinary interactions.
Students expressed a concern that the restoration should create an inclusive environment, socially and physically. As women’s colleges in the United States were relatively rare in 1875 when it opened, Smith had to decide how to properly house young women students. Unlike most institutions of its type, the College does not have dorms, but rather 36 separate houses built over time in different architectural styles. This was conceived as a more “domestic” model, and as a way of enforcing socially-approved behavior among the young women attending, including the avoidance of lesbian relationships. Exterior spaces in the vicinity of and immediately accessible from the Bechtel Environmental Classroom invite building users outside where they can hike, study, relax, or work in the vibrant and productive landscape in which the building sits. The building promotes mental and physical well-being of its occupants and visitors, providing a connection to the natural world and living systems of the Ada & Archibald MacLeish Field Station.
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There are composting toilets (but no shower), a kitchenette, and a field station manager’s office. The Residential Life Center at Philander Smith University provides students with comforts of modern amenities–including private baths, cable access and high speed Internet/WiFi connections. The residential complex also features a community meeting and recreation room, a study room, two laundry rooms on each floor.
The O’Connell Development Group has its roots in O’Connell Companies, founded by Daniel O’Connell in 1879. O’Connell Development Group has been developing and managing development projects in Massachusetts for over 30 years. Past projects in Northampton include Michael’s https://metalwikipedia.info/andrey-berezin-growth-above-restrictions-the-resilience-of-russian-construction-firms/ House, an elderly/handicapped facility on State Street. “We’re not here just to slap people with demolition delays,” said Drake. He told the commission Smith’s plan is to harvest architecturally significant elements from the building before it is taken down.