{"id":54505,"date":"2019-09-09T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T12:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/retrofitmagazine.com\/?p=54505"},"modified":"2023-08-17T11:40:13","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T15:40:13","slug":"harvard-university-updates-a-brutalist-structure-into-a-campus-center-that-also-supports-the-wider-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/retrofitmagazine.com\/harvard-university-updates-a-brutalist-structure-into-a-campus-center-that-also-supports-the-wider-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvard University Updates a Brutalist Structure Into a Campus Center That Also Supports the Wider Community"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Designed as an administrative building by Josep Lluis Sert, dean of Harvard University\u2019s Graduate School of Design, in 1958, Holyoke Center, a Brutalist building on Harvard Square, was completed in 1966. The 100-foot-tall concrete structure was a remarkable work of urban design for its time, proposing innovative street-level pedestrian space at its base. But as the seminal building approached its half-century mark, it had become unloved and well-worn during the passing years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Set
Set on the footprint of the original courtyard site, the new Harvard Commons pavilion comprises a multilevel, open-plan series of spaces.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In 2013, seeking to realize its first-ever physical hub for students, faculty, staff, visitors and the Cambridge, Mass., community at large, university representatives decided to repurpose the lower floors of the building as the new Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Campus Center. Part of a multi-year effort to create and improve common spaces across Harvard to ensure its physical spaces would foster the intellectual, cultural and social experience, as well as support the wider community, the revived building was envisioned as the new meeting place of \u201ctown and gown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KEY INTERVENTIONS<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In April 2016, a large-scale renovation and construction project comprising rejuvenated indoor and outdoor spaces was launched for the Campus Center with a transformational design by Hopkins Architects, London, which worked with our firm, Bruner\/Cott Architects, Boston, as executive architect, as well as Arup, Boston; Faithful+Gould, London; Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, Waltham, Mass.; and Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Cambridge. Opened in fall 2018, the new building represents a radical reappraisal of the original, bringing bold and inventive new spaces to the heart of Harvard\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopkins Architects\u2019 design reconfigured the building\u2019s first, second and 10th floors, reinterpreting the history and logic of Sert\u2019s architecture through a series of additions to and removals of existing fabric, creating new internal spaces interspersed with captured internal and external landscaping. Understanding Sert\u2019s original intentions for the building and how they had been compromised over the years was crucial to the plan. Harvard and the design team undertook a careful study to fully understand these aims, leading to several key interventions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first and second floors of the building, now largely open to public use, were originally realized as a series of physically separated pavilions with little connectivity between them or to the streets around them. Sert placed pavilions on all four sides of the building and to each side of its central arcade to provide frontage and activity onto the surrounding streets and to create new areas of public realm. The pavilions originally connected through from the street to the arcade but had been subdivided and blocked up over time until none of this legibility and connection remained. The existing levels and heights further limited their potential uses. The new plan connects all four quarters of the building into a new whole on the interior while on the perimeter providing visual and physical links to all four streets of the city block.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The new materials for the Campus Center are distinct from but complementary to the existing building fabric.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Each pavilion, along with the spaces that connect them, proffer social and meeting spaces that support multiple activities for the university community\u2014malleable areas that recognize in equal measure a place for the individual and a place for the whole. Two new pavilions were added, and one was refurbished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new Moise Y. Safra Welcome Pavilion restores the clarity of the original plaza entrance on Harvard Square. Subsequent additions were removed to create a volume that carefully extends from Sert\u2019s fa\u00e7ade in the character of his own pavilions. Proffering a new Harvard \u201cgateway\u201d for visitors and tourists alike, the space also provides information for the whole community on the many events and activities taking place on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An originally proposed central public courtyard subsequently subsumed by retail space was resurrected and reinterpreted as the new Harvard Commons pavilion. A series of internal and external landscape \u201cthresholds\u201d mediate at either end of the arcade leading into this new space, the largest in the building. Set on the footprint of the original courtyard site, it comprises a multi-level, open-plan series of spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The barriers between social and study space, public and student space are blurred in the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Campus Center.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

MODERN LEARNING<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

At the heart of the Commons is the \u201cliving room\u201d, a multipurpose space capable of supporting large-scale events while functioning as a gathering and social area day-to-day. This flexible approach was core to addressing the needs of today\u2019s students, whose learning culture has evolved from a static, classroom-based experience to a much more fluid \u201cwhenever, wherever\u201d context. The barriers between social and study space, public and student space are blurred in the Commons, allowing for a flow of activities expressive of openness to a new age of learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the careful removal of existing concrete fabric, light, view and landscape were also introduced into the Commons, softening the arcade\u2019s singular linearity while allowing its defining order to remain, creating\u2014in Sert\u2019s words\u2014\u201can oasis in the middle of noisy crossroads.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The building\u2019s Dunster Street pavilion was refurbished. Its reconnection to the arcade was re-established, and its Sert-designed modernist roofscape of mechanical rooms was transformed into an occupiable landscaped roof terrace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional interventions on the first floor included opening them out across the building\u2019s width and length to form new public connections with the wider urban context of Cambridge and to create views from Holyoke Street across to Dunster Street. The entry floor\u2019s light-filled spaces now feature food venues, unique indoor landscape elements, and comfortable and healthy furniture across numerous spaces for relaxation, studying, informal gathering, programs and events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The building\u2019s 10th floor was completely reorganized to provide a flexible suite of formal and informal gathering areas that openly engage Sert\u2019s building with the campus, the Charles River and the city beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PHOTOS:<\/strong> RICHARD MANDELKORN<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

NEW MATERIALS<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The new materials for the Campus Center are distinct from but complementary to the existing building fabric. A new architecture of steel, glass, timber, and stone sits alongside the in situ Brutalist concrete and traditional iron spot brick-paved sidewalks of Cambridge. The detailing and connection of the new structures and materials were designed to express and celebrate their construction, as well as to show a clear differentiation between old and new. Materials were also chosen to reflect the nature and use of the spaces within. The first-floor public areas are more robustly detailed with the upper levels softened by more natural materials, carpets and furnishings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A new architecture of steel, glass, timber and stone sits alongside the in situ Brutalist concrete.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The introduction of the new landscaped vitrine in the center of the building brings light and greenery into the heart of the new common spaces. It is a key architectural feature within them, operating as a natural point of gathering and focus, as well as a permeable screen between the activities in the arcade and the Commons. Along with the arcade\u2019s green walls, these landscaped spaces and features allow occupants to experience and enjoy greenery and landscape year-round. The quality of the light filtered through the trees and plants creates places of repose, calm and pause throughout the structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally, Sert had playfully used color throughout the building as part of its architectural language but this was entirely lost over time. Taking inspiration from his palette of primary and complementary neutral tones, color was reintroduced to the Campus Center. On the interior, bold blocks of it enliven the space and create legibility and character; on the exterior, vibrancy and freshness has been restored to the fa\u00e7ades as originally intended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sert\u2019s precast concrete fins and different window dimensions animated his fa\u00e7ades with contrast between translucent panels and clear glass. Elevations broke with modernist practice by changing alignments that establish rhythms of figure and ground from floor-to-floor. Accumulated concrete fractures and glazing failures realized over five decades necessitated a meticulous renovation of all fa\u00e7ades by our firm. Bruner\/Cott Architects has a venerable history in the restoration and renovation of mid-century buildings and had recently renewed Sert\u2019s Boston University School of Law Tower\u2014a concrete structure contemporary with Holyoke Center\u2014the learnings from which were applied to the Campus Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simpson, Gumpertz + Heger conducted a study to predict the extent of necessary repairs and concrete replacement on the fa\u00e7ades. Hopkins Architects\u2019 design team then designated which portions should remain, which should be removed and how the newly designed sections should relate to the original architecture. We initiated extensive testing to determine best processes for the fa\u00e7ades\u2019 renewal. First, the building was cleaned, and the right mixes of cement, lime and aggregate were determined to match the existing concrete of its architectural surfaces. Physical repair of spalling, fractures and concrete cracks ensued, followed by the application of solar\/safety films to the building\u2019s windows. Following restoration, the application of Sert\u2019s colors on the vision panels across the windows brought the fa\u00e7ades back to life. They now serve as backdrops for newly designed outdoor spaces with ample accessible caf\u00e9-style seating, chess tables, new lighting and many new trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Landscaped
Landscaped spaces and features allow occupants to experience and enjoy greenery and landscape year-round.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Stakeholder outreach throughout the entire process ensured the Smith Campus Center project aligned with the needs and hopes of the entire Harvard community. The close relationship between client and architects, as well as project consultants, ensured this outreach had a meaningful effect on the design and related initiatives, evidenced by the building\u2019s immediate success upon opening. This formative project provided an opportunity to create a new place for the university and its surrounding community to come together, responding to Sert\u2019s architecture in a manner that is transformative and dynamic but which, with each intervention, is grounded in and sympathetic to the history and design of the building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Retrofit Team<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

DESIGN ARCHITECT:<\/strong> Hopkins Architects<\/a>, London
EXECUTIVE ARCHITECT:<\/strong> Bruner\/Cott Architects<\/a>, Boston
GENERAL CONTRACTOR:<\/strong> Consigli Construction<\/a>, Boston
COST ESTIMATOR:<\/strong> Faithful+Gould<\/a>, London
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: <\/strong>Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates<\/a>, Cambridge, Mass.
ENGINEER:<\/strong> Arup<\/a>, Boston, and Simpson Gumpertz & Heger<\/a>, Waltham, Mass.
CABINETWORK AND CUSTOM WOODWORK:<\/strong> Millwork One<\/a>, Cranston, R.I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FAST FACTS<\/h4>\n\n\n\n