Dartmouth College Anonymous Hall

CASE STUDY ANONYMOUS HALL DARTMOUTH COLLEGE HANOVER, NH

LEERS WEINZAPFEL ASSOCIATES Architecture + Urban Design LEERS WEINZAPFEL ASSOCIATES

LEERS WEINZAPFEL ASSOCIATES Architecture + Urban Design

CONTENTS 1. Firm Introduction 2. Anonymous Hall Case Study Introduction

Campus Planning

Programming Sustainable Design

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LEERS WEINZAPFEL ASSOCIATES Established in 1982, Boston-based Leers Weinzapfel Associates is a practice recognized for its exceptional quality of design for the public realm in complex urban and campus contexts. The group’s special strength is a “mission impossible” ability to meet extraordinarily difficult building challenges with uncommon design clarity, elegance, and refinement.

From the beginning, our work has been intentionally public in nature and attitude. We are committed to providing meaningful spaces for human interaction and to promoting social wellbeing. Our goal is to create bold and refined architecture for the educational realm. Work of the firm encompasses a diversity of project types, from technically demanding infrastructure installations and advanced learning and living environments for educational institutions, to prominent civic buildings and economical community recreation centers. Underlying each design concept is a clear commitment to the wise use of resources and a sustainable future. Leers Weinzapfel is an adopter of the AIA 2030 Commitment that evaluates the impact design decisions have on a project’s energy performance with the goal to reach net zero design by 2030.

In 2007, the American Institute of Architects honored us with the Firm Award, the highest distinction the AIA bestows on an architecture practice, the first and only woman-owned firm to be so honored. Since 2015 ARCHITECT Magazine included the firm on its annual list of Top 50 architecture firms in the country.

75 Kneeland Street Boston MA 02111

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DARTMOUTH COLLEGE ANONYMOUS HALL Hanover, NH

INTRODUCTION Each project begins with goals; priorities and aspirations by which success is measured. For Anonymous Hall, the College desired to make smart use of existing underutilized buildings to provide valuable space that strengthened campus connections. Anonymous Hall succeeds by reusing a vacant 1960’s library in the heart of the medical school quad, strategically adding new space and transforming the building into a vibrant node for students, faculty and visitors alike.

As part of an interconnected 1960s medical school complex on the Dartmouth’s siloed north campus, Anonymous Hall, formerly Dana Hall, transforms a worn corner of the campus into a well-scaled, connected and inviting north quad. The coordinated demolition of an unused laboratory adjacent to Dana Hall makes space for a new addition, which reorients the building to the south to create an inviting campus connection. The project adds entrances to adjacent buildings to make new and welcoming ways in from campus. It incorporates a wide pedestrian bridge linking directly to the heart of the North Quad. And it makes new visually connected circulation paths between buildings. The initiative generates an accessible, seamless link through campus to the historic green and main campus, making physical the north campus connection to undergraduate sciences.

PROJECT TYPE / New Construction SIZE / 32,995sf STATUS / Completed 2020 CONSTRUCTION COST / $23.9M KEY STAFF/ Josiah Stevenson, Principal-in-Charge Ashley Rao, North Campus Conceptual Planning Study CLIENT CONTACT / John Scherding Former Associate Vice President for Planning, Design & Construction Dartmouth College e: johnscherding@gmail.com

SUSTAINABILITY / Near net zero Target for LEED-Gold AWARDS / WAN Awards Facades Shortlist, 2021 Metropolis Metamorphosis Award, First Place in “Addition” 2021 DNA Paris Awards Winner, 2021 PUBLICATIONS / World Architects Building of the Week, 2021 The Architects Newspaper, 2021 Metropolis, 2021 Building, Design & Construction, 2021 Construction Specifier, 2021 Construction News, 2020 Dartmouth News, 2020 NEREJ, 2021, 2018 High Profile, 2020, 2018

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CAMPUS PLANNING The Dartmouth North Campus study recommendations transform the College’s siloed medical campus into a well-scaled and connected invitation to the North Quad.

Strategic building reuse was a critical element of study and two vacant structures – the former Dana Medical Library and Gilman Hall, a research laboratory building, at the south edge of the quad – formed a physical barrier to access. The design team aimed to strengthen the North Quad by creating a more porous ensemble and securing accessible pedestrian routes and landscape connections. Working with the College’s administration, academic users and students, the design team evaluated two scenarios. One approach preserved the obsolete laboratory building and made it more porous. The second scenario kept the empty library structure; transforming it into a gateway.

The consensus decision was to demolish Gilman Hall to make way for an addition to Dana; reorienting and remaking the building to create an inviting campus connection to the south.

The development of new paths and entrances reinforce the gateway approach.

A pedestrian bridge continues a new arcing campus path and makes an accessible connection between the promenade running beneath the new addition and the quad to the north. The addition opens the building entrance lobby and café to the south and houses communal spaces overlooking a campus green to generate both visual and physical connection with the center of campus. New entrances to the adjacent building complex and fresh circulation transform a campus edge into a well-scaled, inviting academic quad.

The renovation reuses an existing building structure while reimagining its site and campus circulation to give a new sense of place aligned with the unique Dartmouth experience.

A | Dana Library reimagined B | North Campus in Context C | Strengthening connections D | Section Perspective

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A | Upper level gathering B | Roof Terrace C | Conference room looking to main stair D | Faculty Office

PROGRAMMING The original building, a medical library, was a part of an unloved medical school complex that had evolved into the North Quad, a place for both graduate study and undergraduate courses. Its existing program obsolete, the assignment for Anonymous Hall was to address a campus wide office shortage by maximizing office space within the building; adaptable for use by both initial temporary departments and permanent department that might follow. In addition, the project’s success required that the design find space within the program to support the North Quads new broader audience.

Anonymous Hall is programmed with offices, labs, classrooms, and administration space that rings a central service core. Common space at each level invites the broader campus community into the building. The projecting addition at the south contains a symposium space with a unifying helix stair that organizes meeting rooms, a double height study lounge, and the second and third floor offices. At the first floor, the lobby, energized by a café, extends out to a colonnade, seating and campus green space as an invitation. The lower level graduate student lounge opens to a sunken patio and lawn. The building’s occupants are invited up to a roof terrace with a solar panel canopy overlooking the nearby Vermont hills and the iconic Baker Tower.

PROGRAM • Graduate School Administrative Offices • Graduate Student Lounge & Patio • Faculty offices and support spaces • Meeting & Conference rooms • Seminar Classrooms • Café • Campus Green Space & Public Terraces • Emergency Egress & Entrance Upgrades to Adjacent Buildings • Roof Terrace

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SUSTAINABILITY LEED v.4 Certification (tracking)

The renovation and adaptive reuse of Dartmouth College’s Anonymous Hall offers a blueprint for transforming both building use and energy use to meet today’s needs.

Dartmouth College’s Anonymous Hall uses five highly effective strategies to reduce the building’s energy footprint within a tight construction budget. The renovation reuses the concrete and steel structure of the original 1962 Dana Hall Biomedical Library building, implements highly insulated walls and roof, makes use of ultra-high-performance glazing, uses an efficient space-saving mechanical system and incorporates a photovoltaic shading canopy to reduce the energy used in construction and reduce predicted energy use by 90% compared to baseline.

REUSE The design strategically adds a new combination shear-core and braced-frame lateral system and attaches a steel-framed addition at the south. These interventions bring the structure up to modern codes and allow for the reprogramming of the building. The reuse of existing structure reduced the amount of new high embodied energy materials like steel and concrete used in construction. The project salvaged over 20,000 cubic feet of concrete, reducing CO2 emissions by at least 1237 metric tons based on NRMCA estimates for carbon emissions from concrete alone. The salvaged steel as well as the reduced demolition and construction activities associated with the structure further reduce energy demand associated with the building.

HIGHLY INSULATED Insulation is tremendously cost-effective as an energy efficiency measure. Supporting a light terracotta rainscreen facade, the lightweight stud framed exterior walls combine 6” of continuous dual density stone wool insulation with 5 1/2” of stone wool batt in the cavities to provide an effective U-Value of 0.033, double code required thermal resistance.

The roof system provides a minimum R-60 continuous insulation with an average effective U-value of 0.014 or almost triple code required thermal resistance. Continuity in the envelope is maintained by projecting the wall beyond the slabs, using structural thermal breaks at projections, and incorporating an additional outboard vapor permeable water barrier to protect the integrity of the continuous insulation.

ADVANCED GLAZING The glazing strategy for Anonymous Hall combines careful proportions, locations, recesses, canopies, and overshadowing with advanced technologies. The triple-glazed punched windows on three sides of the building are tall and set deep in the wall with two low-E coatings to minimize solar heat gain and winter heat loss. Continuous curtainwall glazing at the ground floor is under cover from the floor above and the penthouse is shaded by the photovoltaic canopy.

ROOF IS 230% BETTER THAN CODE WALL IS 200% BETTER THAN CODE GLASS IS 250% BETTER THAN CODE

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The new south addition is clad in an advanced fully-glazed curtainwall facade system designed with passive measures and active controls to produce a thermally efficient envelope responsive to its environment. The glass facade is made of 2” triple-glazed insulated units and high-performance vacuum insulated glass panels arranged in response to orientation and to maintain visual connections to the landscape beyond.

Both units have integral expanded metal mesh shading and are silicone structurally glazed to a thermally-improved aluminum curtainwall frame. Each component is optimized for thermal performance with a whole system U-value of 0.17, several times more efficient than the latest energy code requirement. The system also pairs automated vent windows with daylight-responsive shades to allow simultaneous daylight control and natural ventilation.

ENERGY EFFICIENT MECHANICAL SYSTEMS Served by central chilled water and hot water loops, a highly responsive radiant heating and cooling system with dedicated outside air and fan assisted natural ventilation fits to the tight constraints of the salvaged structure and with a conducive program made of a high percentage of offices and analytical labs. Through individual controls, the system provides ventilation air in volumes and to spaces only as needed to dramatically reduce the size of air handling equipment and the energy it consumes. Additionally, manual and automated windows allow natural ventilation when outside conditions permit to further reduce energy use. Finally, the fenestrations and glazing are carefully calibrated to the available radiant panel cooling to eliminate the need for expensive and energy consuming supplemental systems.

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PHOTOVOLTAIC CANOPY The small penthouse at the roof of the existing building allow for a terrace roof garden with a solar canopy above.

Covering nearly the full existing roof area, the 67kw photovoltaic panel canopy reduces the building’s predicted energy use index (pEUI) from 25 to 10 kBtu/sf/yr.

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LEERS WEINZAPFEL ASSOCIATES 75 Kneeland Street, 3rd Floor Boston, Massachusetts 02111 tel 617 423 5711 www.lwa-architects.com