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Bennington College Student Center
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An old campus café is expanded into a mixed-use student center.
Taylor & Burns Architects extended Bennington College’s old 3,000-square-foot brick café into a 7,000-square-foot mixed-use center. The architects created a barn-like building and connected it to the existing café with a glazed passageway. The new student center has a shed roof that slopes diagonally to a height of 36 feet at its peak and is supported by exposed glue-laminated beams.
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The building has cedar rainscreen cladding detailed as vertical battens. A broad wall of fenestration is enhanced with glass doors that can be raised to open the interior space to an outdoor brick terrace. An exterior horizontal screen of steel rods is expanded across the glazing to provide shade. The glazed link between the old and new portions of the building, and the interior and exterior space, creates a continuous landscape that opens to the campus.
The student center was designed for adaptable use; the building transforms to host the kinetic activities of students. A demountable stage, theatrical sound and lighting, a DJ control booth, a sprung floor for dancing, and adjustable acoustics, including wall paneling and a motor-operated curtain to dampen amplified productions, enable the space to cater to various student events. The use of the space alters by day, week, and season to accommodate cafeteria use, weekend dance parties, poetry readings, musical recitals, and informal gatherings.
Formal name of project: Bennington College Student Center
Location: Bennington, Vermont
Gross square footage: 10,000 sq.ft.
Completion Date: February 2007
Total construction cost: $3.7 million
Owner: Bennington College
Architect:
Taylor & Burns Architects
58 Winter Street
Boston, MA 02108
T: 617.357.5335
F: 617.357.5654
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