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New Student Union, ASU
Polytechnic Campus
Atwater Commons
Hamilton Village Towers,
University of Pennsylvania
Kenyon Athletic Center
Original Student Center
Expansion
The Warehouse
Tangeman University Center
University of Chicago, Graduate School of
Business
University Center of Lake
County
Westminster Theatre & Cultural Center
and Coastline Community College Learning CenterAtwater Commons
A new residential commons uses local materials and a college's existing architecture for inspiration.
Middlebury College is in the process of developing five residential commons of approximately 450 students each. Each of the new commons is intended to provide intimate living-learning environments for students, offering residential, social, academic, and support programs within a precinct on campus. Atwater Commons, the second commons to be completed, supplements existing housing with 154 new beds in suite configurations and a new 225-seat dining hall. The two stone-clad residential buildings frame distant views to the north and back to Le Chateau, an icon on campus. The dining hall is articulated as a glazed pavilion nestled in the woods, providing tree-level views out to the town of Middlebury and mountains beyond.
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The project, designed by KieranTimberlake Associates, reflects the college's environmental goals with careful attention to site strategy, water runoff, and material selection. The residence halls are naturally ventilated, incorporating floor-through suite plans, transom windows, and ceiling fans in all rooms. Ventilation is supplemented by attic fans, which exhaust through rooftop "chimneys." The dining hall incorporates a planted roof, providing excellent insulation, protection of the roofing membrane, and, most significantly, reduction of impervious surfaces on campus. The majority of materials selected for this project—inside and out, for construction and finish—reflect the college’s commitment to materials local to Vermont and the region, durable and of long-life, and sustainable to the environment.
In general, the architecture of the college represents simplicity, order, materiality, and quality. Each building on campus employs a diverse but common palette of gray stone with brick, wood, plaster, and metal as secondary materials, rendered in simple forms, carefully detailed and finely crafted. At first glance it seems very uniform, but looking closer, the richness of the campus is revealed and the diversity of each building emerges. The new buildings of Atwater Commons employ these precedents.
Formal name of project: Atwater Commons
Location: Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT
Gross square footage: 115,000 GSF (Hall A 49,710 SF, 84 beds; Hall B 71 beds, 41,690 SF; 225-seat dining hall)
Completion Date: Dining Hall (12/2004) Residence Halls (9/2004)
Total construction cost: $25.6 Million
Owner: Middlebury College
Architect:
KieranTimberlake Associates LLP,
420 North 20th Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19130,
[V] 215-922-6600
[F] 215-922-4680
www.kierantimberlake.com/home/index.html
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