Boger Hall at Wesleyan University

CAREER CENTER, ART HISTORY DEPARTMENT, COLLEGE OF LETTERS, MULTI-PURPOSE CLASSROOMS

PIONEERING PEDAGOGY THROUGH PLACEMAKING

WESLEYAN BOGER UNIVERSITY HALL

NEWMANARCHITECTS.COM

About Our Firm

Newman Architects PC is a collaborative design firm led by Joseph Schiffer, Richard Munday, Peter Newman, José A. Hernández, Steven Orlansky, and A. Brooks Fischer. Newman Architects is based in New Haven, Connecticut in the heart of the Yale University Campus.

Newman’s Washington, DC branch office is located in Georgetown, and supports our ability to serve our clients in the Mid-Atlantic region.

The quality of our work has been recognized through publication and awards. We have received more than 125 design excellence awards, including awards from the American Institute of Architects, the Boston Society of Architects, and the International Interior Design Association.

INTRODUCTION The Boger Hall project reinvigorated and expanded Wesleyan’s unused former squash court building to create a vibrant new campus destination that hosts an interdisciplinary program mix, promotes collaboration and innovation, and energizes a major campus pathway and adjoining outdoor spaces.

West-side Elevation Before

Restored College Row Facade

Project scope included designing a welcoming new entrance and mutually reinforcing new homes for the Career Resources Center, Art History Department, College of Letters, and a suite of flexible teaching and learning spaces, while restoring and adaptively reusing an historic McKim, Meade, and White building with three stately facades and one blank side exposed by an earlier building demolition.

Exterior work included restoring Boger’s Classical main façade anchoring the University’s historic “College Row” and adding a slender addition for needed space and to create a new facade along a pedestrian promenade. Gutting the former playing-court interior freed space planning and offered tall floor heights for dramatic spaces.

LEED Platinum Certification culminated highly sustainable design and construction. “... the new home of the Career Center, the College of Letters and Art History.

The students and faculty have embraced the new facility, which has mightily contributed to the vitalization of the core of campus. “ —Michael Roth, President Wesleyan 2020

Pedestrian Promenade-Side Addition and New Facade

PROGRAM The Boger Hall program combines three organizations and a community resource to stimulate collaboration and innovation.

1. Career Resources Center Strategically located in this structure for user convenience and campus prominence, the Career Resources Center redefines its program as a vibrant gathering place and hub of campus life. It supports and stimulates student career development by offering a variety of resources, including a library of print materials and online sources, faculty advisors, intimate spaces for real employment interviews and rehearsals, and welcoming, flexible space for collaboration, social gatherings, and public presentations.

2. Teaching and Learning

Interior of Wesleyan University Career Center

A pool of flexible, easily found teaching-and-learning spaces configured around a broad pedestrian main street supports the building’s departments and others on campus. Its open access, size range, adaptability, and technology complement, together with a strategic location at the heart of campus assure high utilization.

3. Art History Department and College of Letters

Interior Wesleyan University College of Letters Library

Two inherently interdisciplinary departments in their own rights, Art History and College of Letters reinforce each other’s crossdepartmental explorations, sharing key space resources such as reception/waiting, libraries, and meeting/conference rooms to optimize space use and encourage interaction.

Below are examples of tools to gather, quantify, and analyze evolving program.

PROGRAM AREA SUMMARY

Squash Building Adaptive Reuse Wesleyan University, Middeltown, CT

Program Areas Summary Department Career Resource Center (nsf) Administration Secretary Staff Offices Director's Office Interview Rooms Library/Computers CRC Waiting CRC Tutorial Staff Conference Room (shared) Reception Work Room Storage Copy

Student Focus Group

Total CRC net square footage College of Letters (nsf) Administration Secretary Faculty Chair Offices Visitor Library Diaspora Storage Classroom Classroom Classroom Lounge (25 seat) Total COL net square footage Art History (nsf) Faculty Emeriti - growth Visitor Smaller Digital Media Library AH - Visual Resource Librarian AH - Visual Resource Technician Classroom Classroom

Staff Workshop

Total AH net square footage Shared Spaces Conference Room First Floor Conference Room Second Floor AH/COL Administration AH/COL Storage AH/COL Student Work Area AH/COL Kitchen

Proposed Program Area No. Spaces Req.d Size Total 1 1 8 1 2 1

300 150 140 165 82 550

1 1

307 200

1 1 8 1 4 1 1

300 150 165 165 82 460 225

1 1 1 1

735 420 525 500

300 150 1,120 165 164 550 0 307 200 0 0 0 0

3/31/2010

10 1 2 1 1

113 - 149 179 85 - 91 1,057 83

1 1 1 1 1

127 65 217 42 32

3,358

300 150 1,320 165 328 460 225 0 735 420 525 500

0 0 1,320 155 358 604 241 58 808 445 623 0

8 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

162-174 155 174 - 184 604 241 58 808 445 623

5,128 8 1 1 1 1

165 165 82 403 140

1 1

620 420

0 0 1,380 179 176 1,057 83 0 127 65 217 42 32

2,956

1,320 165 82 403 140 0 620 420

4,612 8

160 - 174

1 1 1 1 1 1

96 400 137 71 675 482

3,150

1,328 0 96 400 137 71 675 482 3,189

1 1 1 1 1 1

Total Shared net square footage Support Spaces (nsf) Toilet Rooms Classroom Storage Total Support net square footage Total Net Area

Planning Scenario Area No. Spaces Avg. Size Total

225 354 319 58 184 79

225 354 319 58 184 79 1,219

8 1 11,234

54 - 99

528 45 573 12,951

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DESIGN CONCEPT

The Boger Hall project took maximum advantage of opportunities to create a campus heart while achieving its own goals. It transformed a vacant building to create a new campus destination at a strategic location along a highly utilized pedestrian promenade.

CONTEXT-AWARE PLANNING

Boger Hall joins the existing student center in forming and energizing the pedestrian promenade connecting historic Andrews Field, the original center of campus, with the Center for the Arts quadrangle to the north.

A slender addition on Boger’s promenade side adds critically needed space to its narrow footprint and creates a new façade.

Student Center

College Row

Student Center Boger Hall Career Center

CONTEXT DIAGRAMS

The diagrams at right illustrate how the re-inhabited Boger Hall is ideally located to create a new campus destination and catalyze activity in adjoining buildings and outdoor spaces.

Boger Hall

Pedestrian Promenade

Site Plan

Locating the Career Resources Center at the Andrews Field end of Boger, and revealing it to the commons with glass walls, positions it to invite and welcome users. A new entrance on the promenade gives Boger the prominent, campus-side entrance it had always lacked, welcoming users to the Center, shared classrooms, and departments above.

Design and construction worked around and over a labyrinth of campus utility tunnels and main service access into the adjacent student center in Boger’s lower level that needed to remain open.

Arts Center Quad

Adrews Field

First Floor Plan

Pedestrian Promenade

Boger Hall joins the existing student center in forming and energizing the pedestrian promenade connecting historic Andrews Field, the original center of campus, with the Center for the Arts quadrangle to the north.

Pedestrian Promenade

SPACE PLANNING Space planning capitalizes on pedestrian and floorheight resources to gather and inspire community, as diagrammed in the early program plans shown at right.

Ground-level, glass-walled Career Center, main entrance, and classrooms invite passersby in from the promenade. Tall, generous lobby, main hallway, and multi-use space welcome them. Overlooking balconies help them see and be seen.

The Career Center’s multi-use space flexibly supports a wide variety of career-research, social events, and information-presentation activities, with the ability to spill out onto the promenade in fair weather. Support spaces nestle in behind, including a secluded waiting area and small rooms for employment interviews and coaching.

Above, Art History and College of Letters share a loop corridor without dead ends that maximizes access and promotes spontaneous interaction, with transparent partitions to invite entrance.

These departments share many facilities to improve space use efficiency and promote interdisciplinary collaboration, such as reception, meeting, and library space. A shared conference room brings staff together in the middle with generous views out over the main entrance. A skylit library and visual resource room in the center take advantage of gable-roof height for inspiring spaces. Faculty offices feature simple, flexible plans to support mentoring and collaboration.

Career Center

1st Floor

Shared Classrooms

LEGEND Office Conference/ Meeting/ Work

Open to Below

Open to Below

Vertical Circulation

Upper Part of Career Center & Lobby Horizontal Circulation Shared Program

2nd Floor

Art History

College of Letters

Teaching/ Learning Storage/ Utility/ Service Bathroom

3rd Floor Program Plans

A key design challenge was to optimize the reconfiguration of the existing shell’s open volume, generous floor heights, and idiosyncratic fenestration to create a diverse mix of welcoming, inspiring, and flexible spaces.

Student Center

DESIGN EXPLORATIONS

Boger Hall

Pedestrian Promenade

Site Section

Career Center

Boger Hall with floors removed

Third Floor Library

Main Stair

Exterior design sought a balance between preserving the integrity of the existing College Row facade and inventing a facade on the opposite side to express the building’s new uses in a contemporary architectural idiom that helps animate the pedestrian promenade.

Existing Elevation Alteration Design Studies

Existing McKim, Meade, and White Facade Squash Court Building

Adaptive Reuse

Pedestrian Promenade Addition/Facade Development

Wesleyan University Middletown, Connecticut 6 April 2010

Pedestrian Promenade side with wall removed

College Row Fenestration Alternatives

OUTCOMES Positioned to energize a critical campus corner: Boger Hall seen from Andrews Field along Pedestrian Promenade with Career Center at corner

Inviting student participation: main entrance, career center, classrooms, and conference room showcased along the pedestrian promenade

Welcoming wayfinding: Opening doors to career opportunity as a University priority

A great place to hang out: Encouraging career research with a popular destination space

Seeing and being seen: Observing students from balcony of multi-level Career Center

Creating a social heart: Open main stairway as a place of orientation and socialization

Promoting Interaction: Using transparency, openness, warm natural materials, and daylight to stimulate collaboration

Generous, Flexible Faculty Offices Promote Collaboration and Mentoring

Tall, Spacious, Flexible Teaching and Learning Spaces Adapt to a Wide Variety of Use Patterns

Stimulating Creativity: Comfortable seating, rearrangeable furniture, and vibrant color to energize teaching and learning

Surrounded by the Book: The enduring power of the library to draw scholars and build learning communities

300 York Street, New Haven, CT 06511 | 203.772.1990 1054 31st Street NW, Suite 140, Washington, DC 20007 | 202.525.2726 www.newmanarchitects.com © 2016