The construction of two first-year dormitories featuring new architecture and facilities, part of Bowdoin's master plan, is progressing on schedule despite the adverse weather conditions characteristic of Maine winter.
Located on the corner of Coffin and South Streets, the environmentally friendly five-story residence halls, designed by award-winning architect Kyu Sung Woo, will be completed by August 1. According to Acting Director of Facilities Management Don Borkowski the dorms will be fully functional and furnished weeks before the new students arrive.
The new residence halls will be used as "swing space" in the next few years as the current first-year bricks are renovated. For example, students who could have lived in Hyde and Appleton during the 2005-2006 school year will live in the two new dorms.
Winthrop and Maine Halls will likely be renovated next year and Moore and Coleman Halls are slated to get "facelifts" in 2007-2008.
The work done on the first-year bricks will be a general renovation. It will also bring the residence halls up to current fire codes and into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The renovation schedule will be finalized today by a phone vote of the Board of Trustees.
Current first-year dorm interiors will be completely renovated but outside façades of the first-year bricks will remain unchanged in an effort to "preserve the historical integrity" of the buildings, according to Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer S. Catherine Longley.
After renovations are complete, all first-year rooms will be doubles, a move made primarily to "provide a high-quality residential experience" for all students, Dean of Student Affairs Craig Bradley said.
"In terms of the 'arms race' of student housing, we...have to move to doubles" in order to keep up with the residential facilities of other schools like Bowdoin, Longley said.
"There was tremendous pressure that we find [the space for] doubles," she added.
James S. Miller, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, sees the move to doubles as a pragmatic one.
"The Bricks were set up to be doubles originally and simply work better in that arrangement," he said in an email.
"It's clear from our conversations with families that some students prefer doubles over triples," Miller added.
Although the students living on South Street will not be on the Quad, they will be living in a space designed by a renowned architect.
Kyu Sung Woo is the winner of an architectural lifetime achievement award in his home country of South Korea. He is "a really enormously talented designer and architect," Bradley said.
Woo included features such as skylights and cubbies for wet shoes outside every room. One of the new residences will have a large kitchen while the other will have a brand-new laundry facility, according to the building plans. It is hoped that these will facilitate interaction between students in the two new dorms.
A lot of the new features were thought up by students and conveyed to Woo in programming groups. A "very popular thing about Kyu Sung Woo is...that he is very inclusive," Longley said. For example, all rooms will have large tack boards built in above the shoe cubbies, which was a student idea.
There will be a small common area on every floor. There will also be larger, wood-paneled conference rooms on the first floors of both dorms for study groups, meetings, or just hanging out.
Woo "is a very talented architect and knows how to use light...and glass [well,]" Borkowski said. "The stairwells will be lit up with natural light" that comes in through a skylights, he added.
Longley is very excited that "these [dorms] are going to be bright and airy."
The new halls will be "green" buildings, the first on campus. Pending the completion of construction, the South St. dormitories will receive certification of their environmental friendliness from the organization that administers the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard.
Some of the features that will lead to the LEED certification include a geothermal system for heating and cooling the dorms. Although expensive to install, Longley sees it having "a payback of four to five years." All material for the building comes from 500 miles or less from Bowdoin, reducing pollution from unnecessary transportation.
Bowdoin is "really trying to incorporate the concept of sustainability," Longley said.
The dorms are built to last 100 years, but the College hopes that they will last much longer. Borkowski said contractors on site are instructed to use materials that will sustain more than a century of use.
Although the site of the current construction was open space in recent years, various buildings have been located there in the past, including a children's center and residential houses.
The total cost of design, construction and various associated expenses is expected to be about $14.3 million. Longley was "reticent to give...the breakdown [of costs] because we wouldn't want competitors to know what we're paying our contractors."
Various regulatory hurdles stymied efforts to begin construction early in 2004. When the contractors finally began their work late last summer, it became obvious that much of the construction would be completed in the cold. Although the start date was not ideal, Borkowski noted, it's "just how it worked out."
The white plastic sheeting currently surrounding the building helps keep the work area, which is heated, relatively warm. Since the building is made of brick and stone, construction uses mortar. The mortar cannot be cold until it sets. Also, productivity is greatly increased when workers are warm.
The administration is very excited about these new dorms.
"These buildings will be outstanding," Bradley said.