Class of 1982 Engineering and Computer Science Center

Merit

Aug 15

Written By bonnie kastel

Merit Award // Excellence in Architecture Design

Architect // HGA

GC // Turner Construction Company

MEP/FP Engineer // Van Zelm

Civil/Survey Engineer // Engineering Ventures

Structural Engineer // LeMessurier

Geotechnical Engineer // Dartmouth

Audio/Visual Consultant // Cavanaugh Tocci

Landscape Architect // Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.

Building Envelope // Building Enclosure Associates

Cost Estimating // Turner Construction

Description

The LEED Platinum-certified Class of 1982 Engineering and Computer Science Center fulfills an acute space demand for innovative engineering and computer science research atDartmouth College. Programming includes teaching in biotech, energy technologies, cyber-security, and other areas of research that contribute to the advancement of knowledge and problem solving. The building's design fosters collaboration to promote synergies between fields that spark discovery and solutions to global science and engineering challenges. The central atrium forms the social hub of the Center, providing many collaboration and soft spaces. Interiors evoke openness and transparency, allowing researchers, students, and visitors to view the work happening within the labs. The building is designed to take advantage of the campus context of brick academic, research, and student residential life structures. Fitting comfortably within this context, the building reflects a balance between the expression of contemporary research environments and respect for traditional building typologies.

Jury Comments

Another forward-looking and distinct campus node to the same campus as Irving Institute, here juries were most impressed with the project’s interior spaces, in particular, the central atrium social hub space.

The building’s bent-bar massing serves to break down the exterior scale of one of the campus’s largest buildings while creating a dynamic and theatrical interior space fostering interaction and collaboration. The interplay between exterior form and interior space is strong, creating perspectival drama reminiscent of the seemingly organic twists and turns a medieval piazza might take – daylighting, natural materials, an interesting vertical pathway meandering through the space, and an abundance of places to dwell and linger seem to deliver on providing a place where people want to be.

With below-grade parking and loading dock, this project also makes significant investment towards making the campus more pedestrian friendly. All the while achieving LEED Platinum certification - in a building type which is challenging to do so, to say the least – achieving usage reductions of 35% in water and 55% in energy.

The jury recognizes the Class of 1982 Engineering and Computer Science Center with a Merit Award.