Universities facing the question of what to do with their mid-century structures

[MarkDaMan]

Campus buildings’ midlife doesn't have to be a crisis
Universities face questions of what to do with their mid-century structures
POSTED: 06:00 AM PDT Thursday, October 25, 2007
BY ALISON RYAN
Daily Journal of Commerce

Colleges and universities built big to accommodate the baby boomer generation – and schools are now facing questions of renovation, replacement and reuse for the distinctly designed structures of the 1960s and ’70s.

“The reality is that every campus you can name has buildings of this era,” says architect Will Dann, one of the organizers of a regional symposium on mid-century campus buildings that’ll be held Friday in Portland. “Everybody’s got this issue.”

Issues range from the practical, like seismic stability and maintenance, to the theoretical, like the meaning and memories mid-century buildings hold for students past and present. The buildings weren’t built with flexible programming in mind, so it’s hard to make buildings transform for different uses. Many were also built, Dann said, in a way that doesn’t fit into overall campus planning efforts. And mid-century buildings – in all their boxy glory – are also nearing the 50-year mark, when “old” can become “historic.”

At Portland State University, administrators are tackling the mid-century question. Science Building 2, a 1971 four-story structure, is planned for $26 million of seismic, heating and ventilation, life-safety code and other mid-life upgrades.

The building is integral to PSU’s learning core, housing departments like physics, chemistry and biology.

“It’s a huge academic generator for instructional space, as well as teaching and research,” said Robyn Pierce, PSU’s director of facilities and planning.

The cost of building a new science space would have been about $100 million. And price differentials like that make reusing existing buildings a big opportunity – but one that comes with the challenge of moving specific-use spaces into the modern world.

At Science Building 2, a $19 million modernization will expand and rehab small, inflexible learning spaces. A recent trip to Oregon Health & Science University’s new biomedical research building, said Pierce, showed what PSU’s future science building could look like.

“The labs are much more movable, not so much fixed,” she said. “They have ability to collaborate more on research, as well as the education that’s going on in those lab settings.”

Friday’s symposium, an offering of the Society for College and University Planning’s Pacific region, will feature speakers who have faced mid-century questions on their own campuses.

The presentation lineup includes teams from Washington State, the University of California and Oregon State. Margaret Dyer-Chamberlain, director of capital planning at Stanford, will keynote.

The idea, Dann said, was to offer actual decision-making tools that the membership – which includes both building professionals and campus facility managers – could translate to their own work.

“Although we focused on case studies, we tried not to make it a show-and-tell for the architects,” he said. “We focused on methodology.”
http://www.djcoregon.com/articleDeta...t-to-do-with-t

[zilfondel]

Well, PSU for one isn't about to raze the entire campus! Besides Shattuck, Lincoln Hall, and the Simon Bensen House, every building on campus is Modern.

Also reminds me a bit of Corvallis - OSU has lots of taller 50s/60s academic buildings that give the city a lot more urban feeling than just about anything in that town.

Europe has a TON of mid-century buildings that also help define the urban environment and streetscape; not everything standing in those old cities was built in the 14th century.

Like it or not, they're part of the urban fabric... and at the least can be renovated to be nicer buildings. Just look at the work they did on the Ione Plaza - that building actually looks good now!


*edit* ...not to mention the sustainability issues with tearing down rather than renovating