February 2006
Frist Campus Center, Princeton University
New Uses in Old Buildings
by Nancy Rogo Trainer, AIA, AICP, LEED AP Principal Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates
Most colleges and universities have at least one building that has outlasted its original use, that no longer meets the current needs of its intended functions, or that’s simply in the “wrong” place now that patterns of development have shifted around it. What do you do with these “white elephants”?
Some of these buildings have simply too much character or historical significance to demolish, and adaptive reuse (even of structures without much apparent charm) can be an important component of a campus sustainability strategy. Often – and particularly within the coveted campus core – the imaginative adaptation of underused buildings to new purposes can have an invigorating and transformative effect on campus life.
Explorations from the “outside-in” and the “inside-out” – considering overall campus planning issues alongside building capacities – can produce unexpectedly symbiotic pairings of building and function. Evolving campus patterns – of activity and pedestrian movement, for example – can suggest different uses for buildings and can be augmented or altered in turn by new building programs. And the relationship between the existing building and the proposed program oscillates too, as some spaces are adapted to accommodate planned functions and others suggest more serendipitous uses not in the original program.
Reusing buildings can be an adventure – often a costly one. Building adaptations need to meet current codes and standards for comfort, accessibility, and safety in buildings not designed for them.
Structural modifications can be modest or extensive. Service access can be thorny, particularly for historic buildings in dense campus centers. Beyond the technical and pragmatic, there’s the issue of image: how should the identity of new uses be expressed in the juxtaposition of old and new?
We can see some of the challenges and rewards of adaptive reuse in three recent and current academic projects:
Princeton University, Frist Campus Center: University of Pennsylvania, Locust Walk: and Bryn Mawr College, Dalton Hall.
Princeton University, Frist Campus Center
Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc. (VSBA) renovated and expanded Palmer Hall, Princeton’s original physics laboratory, to house the new Frist Campus Center. Palmer Hall was historically significant (Einstein taught there) but deteriorated and underutilized. Over time, its location at the periphery of the traditional campus core became the geographical center of the changing campus as University uses expanded eastward. Paths linking academic, social, recreational, and residential activities intersected at the site – suggesting its potential for use by the entire campus community.
The Campus Center is organized to reinforce these paths and establish the facility as a place of activity along these routes – at once a destination and point of passage and casual interaction. Paul Breitman, Princeton’s Director of University Services, notes that “people just flow into the building. Frist has really changed the campus culture by creating opportunities for students, staff, faculty, and alumni to interact on an equal basis.”
To create a campus-wide identity in what had been a departmental destination building, a new arcade and multiple entries at the north face make more public the rather private and closed facade of Palmer, while respecting the beautiful quality of the Jacobean style of its architecture.
The primary procession through the facility follows the terraced grading of the site. Visitors approaching from the north pass through the new arcade into entries at Palmer’s lower level and move south through a series of “streets” lined with shops, student mail, and information boards. The basement’s original brick bearing walls – painted with Princeton’s symbols, icons, and quotations from famous (and not-so-famous) Princetonians – contribute to the character and rhythm of these passages. At the end of these paths, a light-filled lounge overlooks a new atrium with views opening out to the south. A generous flight of stairs leads further down to a dining room which opens onto a terrace and lawn. Multiple entries are provided at this level for those approaching from the south.
In creatively adapting Palmer, VSBA discovered “found” spaces that could be put to new uses. The existing U-shaped building provided a basis for the expansive new commons area, bordered by a new exterior glass wall. Adjacent to the commons, a neon-lit café was created in an old brick-lined basement workspace – a space Breitman calls “dark, cluttered, and very Princeton.” Throughout the Center, nooks for gathering or quiet study were placed at intersections between the old and the new.
One of Frist’s state-of-the art academic spaces was restored with the original seating and a display of the room’s original scientific apparatuses; another retained its original vaulted and ribbed plaster ceiling but was completely transformed to house a film and performance theater.
Throughout the Campus Center, new and old co-exist to forge an identity that welcomes the entire University community. As Breitman notes, “We don’t distinguish between the ‘old building’ and the ‘new building.’ It’s just the Frist Campus Center…and it’s created a synergy that never existed here before.”
Left: Frist Cafe, Princeton University; Right: Graphics on the walls contribute to the character of the halls of Frist Campus Center, Princeton University.
University of Pennsylvania, Buildings along Locust Walk
“White elephants” need not be, well, elephantine. Indeed, residential-scaled buildings present special challenges to institutions: they’re often expensive to renovate and maintain but too small to accommodate academic departments. Yet, they contribute to the pedestrian-friendly quality and historic character of many campuses and can help make graceful transitions from the institutional scale of the campus to the residential scale of surrounding neighborhoods.
At the University of Pennsylvania, several of the small-scale buildings along Locust Walk – including some built before the University’s 1872 move to West Philadelphia – have found second (and third) lives serving diverse campus-wide constituencies in intimately-scaled spaces.
According to Penn Principal Planner Mark Kocent, at one time the fraternity houses along Locust Walk (until 1963, Locust Street) seemed remote from the campus core. But as Penn extended westward in the 1950s and 1960s, the buildings lining Locust became more geographically and symbolically central to the campus and the route became the primary east-west pathway through Penn. By 1990, when VSBA was approached to explore the diversification of Locust Walk, there was a growing sense at the University that a single activity private to a single group – men in fraternities – too often dominated this important campus artery.
Since then, Penn has worked to bring more diverse campus-wide groups to Locust Walk. For example, Penn Women’s Center is now located in Locust House, the former Theta Xi fraternity house. After its fraternity chapter was disbanded, the 1870 building lay empty and deteriorated and until its conversion (by Voith Mactavish Architects) almost a decade ago.
The Graduate Student Center is housed in the Veranda, another disbanded fraternity chapter house. Built in 1951 for Phi Sigma Kappa, the building now provides “a place for commuting graduate students to call home for the day.” The renovation of the building, according to Kocent, illustrates the complexity and cost of converting campus buildings from residential to other campus uses. For example, Penn’s commitment to meeting current accessibility standards in the Veranda required the installation of an elevator, which in turn required extensive electrical upgrades to the building.
Not all new uses on Locust Walk are housed in former fraternity buildings. For example, Civic House – a mid-19th century Gothic cottage built as part of a speculative residential development – has been a private home, a rectory, a campus police station, and now Penn’s hub for student-led community service and social advocacy.
Another Gothic cottage from about the same time is now the Kelly Writer’s House. Renovation by Stevens and Steinberg Architects converted the former chaplain’s residence at 3805 Locust Walk to a center where Penn students, faculty, staff, and other writers could come together for courses, readings, informal meetings, and advice. An “arts café” in the former living room has hosted readings by Susan Sontag, A.S. Byatt, and many others; former bedrooms provide space for offices and a small publishing operation. Conversion from residential use required a commitment to leave the third floor – which has only one means of egress – permanently unoccupied.
New uses in these buildings have helped to bring more diverse campus constituencies to Locust Walk, making Penn’s primary east-west access through the campus core livelier, more vital, and more welcoming to the entire campus community.
Model of Dalton Hall renovation, MGA Partners
Bryn Mawr College’s Dalton Hall, built in 1893, was the first building devoted to academics on the College campus. Originally the College's science building, it was technologically and sociologically advanced for its time, signifying the institution’s commitment to science education for women.
Located at the northeast corner of what was to become the traditional campus core, the building has always been set somewhat apart from the central College green. The 1986 construction of Guild Hall, a new computer sciences building, further separated Dalton’s main entrance from major circulation paths and shared community spaces.
The building has long been obsolete; most of the College’s laboratory sciences long ago decamped to other spaces in newer buildings to the west. Over time, Dalton was converted to use by the anthropology and psychology departments. Its generous laboratory spaces were divided, sometimes higgledy-piggledy, into smaller classrooms, offices, and laboratories. Suspended ceilings and interstitial floors were added to original double-height third floor laboratory spaces; circulation through the building was circuitous and disorienting.
Bryn Mawr chose to consider new uses for the building within the context of a larger academic precinct study, which analyzed interrelated teaching and learning spaces in four separate buildings. The study, performed by MGA Partners (who are also the architects for the Dalton renovation), outlined a series of phased projects – “musical chairs,” in the words of the College’s Assistant Director for Planning and Projects Christopher Gluesing – in which Dalton would become the new home of Bryn Mawr's social science departments, spaces for recently created interdisciplinary academic centers, and instructional spaces to be shared by the entire campus. When complete, the building will house eleven new classrooms and, according to Gluesing, “will easily be the most instructionally rich spot on campus.”
Instructional and social spaces will continue in a new underground link to Guild, providing academic and social spaces for interdepartmental collaboration. A new glass stair hall-entry at the building’s west side will help reconnect the building’s entrance to Taylor Green, bringing natural light to all levels (including the new underground link to Guild) during the day and serving as a lantern at night.
The spaces on the third floor where early generations of Mawrters performed chemistry experiments have been reopened to their full height and their trusses have been once again exposed. This floor will include the most technologically up-to-date multi-purpose instructional space on the campus as well as anthropology teaching and research labs. Artifacts from the teaching labs will be visible to all who visit the floor – a mix of the technological and the tangible, Gluesing says, that exemplifies a Bryn Mawr liberal arts education.
At Princeton, Penn, and Bryn Mawr, reuse of historic buildings has had benefits far beyond the walls of the renovated buildings. By providing homes within coveted campus cores for new, institution-wide uses, these projects bring people and communities together in new ways – and, in so doing, give new and reinvigorated meaning to the traditional campus.
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© Copyright 2006 ISSN 1071-1651