Top archietects to compete for Superblock job

Officials have invited six firms to submit plans for a new Hamilton Village. Six noted architectural firms will compete for the chance to design the new look of the Hamilton Village area of campus as part of Penn's 10-year, $300 million dorm and dining overhaul, University officials announced on Monday. The six firms -- based as close as Philadelphia and as far away as Vancouver, British Columbia -- will visit campus this week "to get a feel for" the University's needs, officials said. They will return in five weeks with specific ideas for constructing new residential facilities and renovating the existing buildings of Hamilton Village, formerly known as Superblock. By the end of this phase of the project -- estimated to cost $150 million and described by officials as the "most ambitious" part of the massive overhaul -- there will be 1,000 new beds in Hamilton Village and each of the high rises and low rises will have undergone extensive renovations. Associate Vice President for Campus Services Larry Moneta said the proposal will help connect today's Superblock with the Hamilton Village of yesteryear. "[The project] allows us to transform this area and is really an opportunity both to recover some of the village-like qualities that were in place prior to the high rise construction and to return to the best we have [now]," Moneta said. He added that the Hamilton Village renovations and construction are a "peculiar, interesting and really wonderful notion" that will greatly enhance the educational experience of future Penn students. "We believe that the popularity of college house living should be driven predominantly by the quality of the experience and secondly, but nearly as equally important, by the quality of the facilities, the resources and the services," Moneta said. Seven hundred of the new beds will come from a series of low-rise buildings situated throughout the Hamilton Village area. Project coordinators expect to add another 300 beds to the existing residences, which includes the three high rises and DuBois and Gregory college houses. David Brownlee, director of College Houses and Academic Services, said there are three clear objectives for this phase: to provide additional bed space and upgrade existing facilities; to create a more attractive visual and physical environment; and to integrate Hamilton Village with the surrounding neighborhood. "The project now is to find excellent architects to give architectural form to our analysis," Brownlee said. "What we will be asking architects to do is to provide buildings that are designed from the start specifically to function as college houses, that are designed from the inside out." Brownlee listed library spaces, computer labs, recreational lounges, office suites and music practice rooms as "essential facilities" for each new and renovated college house. "This is an exciting time," Brownlee added. "The challenge for the University is to be an extremely good client, to ask smart architectural questions and get [the firms] to come up with as clever solutions as they can." The decision to hold the design contest was reached in part by a consultative committee of students, faculty and staff. The same group -- with the addition of community members -- will participate in selecting one or more of the architectural firms after the five-week preparation period. "We're trying to be deliberately open and not so restrained in the direction so that the firms don't simply give us six of the same images," Moneta said. "The goal, in fact, in the competition is to say 'What's your conception of how you would best lay [the facilities] out and how you would choose building design?'" Officials emphasized that they could award different pieces of the project to more than one of the six competing firms. University officials expect the winning firm or firms to complete final designs by early 2000, with ground breaking scheduled for early in the fall of 2000. While Brownlee and Moneta said that they are not giving specific ideas to the architects, they did say that they expect part of the high rise renovations to include a one- or two-story "skirt" around each one that would increase common areas and eliminate up to 40 percent of the "wind tunnel" effect. The high rises will likely be reconfigured to put them more in line with a "college house atmosphere" and Moneta did not rule out totally gutting them from the inside out. Such a move, he said, would depend on how much funding is available. Once the 700 new beds are ready in September 2002, they will be used as swing space while every college house except for those in the Quadrangle closes for a year for renovations, beginning with the high rises. Once all construction is complete in the fall of 2008, the extra beds will compose one or more new college houses. Moneta said officials are cognizant of the fact that increased housing in Hamilton Village will decrease the amount of recreation space often used by students. He said that they will make every effort to keep "large courtyard spaces" in the area. "We can leave some pretty big pieces of space," Brownlee said, adding that they may be surrounded by low-rise buildings. He pointed out that the architects are aware of the need to preserve as much green space as possible. This phase of the project will also see the renovation of the Class of 1920 Commons. There will likely be some sort of connection built between Harnwell College House and the dining facility.