Saint Joseph College

Narratives

Architect Narrative

1. What exemplary ideas do the designs contain that enhance learning?

There were five guiding principles in the creation of a center for the arts and humanities;

The first was the scattering of these departments all over the campus over seventy years reduced, even removed opportunities for collaboration among the students and faculty.

The second was that the faculty and their offices, traditionally remote from the classrooms, should be interwoven with the classrooms into functional clusters’

The third was that humanities classrooms ought not to be prototypical. Instead, four different sizes and shapes were promoted, including a conference room/seminar room shape and size that promoted eye-to-eye discussion around one table without technology. The English Department, especially the college poet was passionate about the inclusion of eccentric classroom sizes and shapes.

The fourth principle was that no one wanted corridors; instead, places of clustered gathering within the two buildings were in the program, from Saint Catherine’s garden, a space off the lobby for instruction or gathering to a one and one half story space at the top of the stairs between two department clusters. Bookshelves were built-in for materials that the college wanted the students to be able to take away.

Lastly, after 70 years without a long planned auditorium and performance spaces, a 390 seat horseshoe shaped hall was created to promote the feeling of community during events.

2. What innovations in the planning, programming, and design process supported the realization of those exemplary ideas?

A prior, highly professional planning and programming effort by well known college planners was not successful in galvanizing the project. Some key leadership changes occurred, and there was a deeply felt need for revisiting basic assumptions. Something more unconventional in the process was now warranted. The process that subsequently ensued was highly collaborative with substantive user input but as importantly, input from leadership, alumnae and the development team on a compelling vision for humanities and art at the College.

There had been a previous long-range plan with room-by-room descriptions of performance criteria for a single, multi-story Center for arts and Humanities on a different campus site. This plan in total square feet, in construction costs and most importantly in site and height needed complete re-examination. It was at least thirty percent over what their budget was intended to be, its height and mass would not have been approved in that Town and, most importantly, it lacked guiding principles about what the essential purpose of this center or centers would be.

The Board Committee hearing this diagnosis of their previous plan set up a new Building Committee whose charge was a new vision, a new program, guiding principles, a new site and a new concept. The vision was developed over several months with the President of the College, the Executive Vice President, the Dean of Humanities and several key faculty including the poet-in-residence of the English Department, the acclaimed Director of Art History, and the distinguished director of the College’s Museum.

Not only was a new mission statement and program developed but also models of each building and interior models of important spaces, such as the new auditorium, the history of art tiered classroom, and the seminar rooms. A site model was also built of that quadrant of the college, so that the relationships between the two new buildings and the balance of the 1932 Olmsted Brothers campus plan could be seen clearly. It was critical when our team discovered in the archives one of the original Olmsted plans that showed a multi-building setting at the end of the campus the team was considering.

The result of the new Center has been a remarkable shift in student life towards this end of the campus. Many new majors in the humanities have been declared and the College enjoys two of its best admission seasons in the last two years. The center is featured in all college tours and the auditorium and museum have been major college community and local community resources. The alumnae, faculty, students, and contributors feel that the new Center is a milestone in their history.