Stern shares vision on Nos. 13, 14
Stern shares vision on Nos. 13, 14
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Yale’s two new residential colleges will be made of brick and limestone, crowned by towers, framed around courtyards, built around entryways and surrounded by moats, said their architect, School of Architecture Dean Robert A.M. Stern ARC ’65.
And if that sounds familiar, that is the point.
Dean Robert Stern outlines his plans for Yale’s new colleges.
Stern has said before that the new colleges will “look like Yale colleges.” But at a Saybrook College Master’s Tea on Wednesday, he elaborated on the features that make the existing colleges work and how those traits will appear in the new colleges.
On a nippy late autumn afternoon, Stern offered a winter-wear metaphor to explain his approach to designing Yale’s 13th and 14th residential colleges.
“We want to make sure we are planning these colleges not like a glove — so tightly fit that if you suddenly have a growth of a carbuncle that you can’t get into them — but mittens,” he said. “Mittens are great.”
He shared guiding principles and vision, if not all the details some students were hoping for. Stern stressed that plans are only preliminary for the colleges, which are not scheduled to break ground until 2011 and will not open until 2013.
“I wish I could reach into my back pocket here and roll out a complete design and show you what we’re doing, but we’re not anywhere at that stage in the process,” he said. “Hundreds of eyes have to look at anything we do step by step.”
Stern said the new colleges would be built from brick and stone, but he was less definitive about their style. Brick does not automatically mean Georgian, he said, nor does stone necessitate neo-Gothic. Many of Yale’s neo-Gothic buildings, such as Jonathan Edwards College and the Hall of Graduate Studies, have extensive brick facades.
The future of undergraduate life at Yale through its largest expansion in over four decades clearly intrigued many students: Stern’s talk, though barely advertised, was packed. Stern said he was interested to hear their thoughts about what the new colleges should be, but he cautioned that they would all graduate before the colleges open.
“We welcome all your suggestions, but the reality is architecture takes a long time and often people who are part of the programming process are not going to reap the rewards,” he said.
Part of the problem with the colleges built in Yale College’s last expansion, Morse and Ezra Stiles, was that the University was “very dutiful” about asking what students wanted, Stern said. At the time, that was single rooms, which have since been considered a major failing of those colleges. Stern said he is sensitive to enduring discomfort with Morse and Stiles and hopes to learn from their shortcomings.
The significance of the event’s host, outgoing Saybrook Master Mary Miller, was not lost on Stern, who referred to the next dean of Yale College as his “client.” Planning for the new residential colleges is sure to top Miller’s priorities when she assumes the deanship in December.
Miller said the design of the colleges hinges on “the idea of what it means to live someplace and to live in a place to which you become attached.” She continued, “There is nothing more exciting, nothing more challenging, to think of how Yale goes forward and, ideally, gets it just right.”
Stern said he and his team have been scrupulously studying the existing colleges to discern their function on the Yale campus.
“How is it I was assigned to this college arbitrarily and I didn’t know one college from another, and now I’m passionate about my college?” Stern posed.
Part of the answer, he said, is entryways. And it’s crucial that the new colleges have them. But modern building codes conflict with that layout, he said, which is why almost all dormitories at other schools are built around corridors. Yale found some leniency for the renovations but building from scratch is much harder, he said.
Another major obstacle is location, Stern said. The colleges will be on the triangular lot behind the Grove Street Cemetery. The existing streets in the plot will be removed and Prospect Place will be turned into a pedestrian plaza bisecting the north and south sides, probably with a college on each side, he said.
“I know many of you feel it’s somewhere between Mongolia and Kazakhstan,” he joked.
But Stern assured “skyline features would make the college seem less far away.”
“So when you are a member of college 13 or 14,” he said, “someone says where do you live, you can proudly point to that tower, and it won’t look like it’s in Mongolia.”
Stern suggested enhancing the walkway along Prospect Street — adding more lighting and a café in the bottom of the Becton Center — to psychologically reduce the distance.
Connecting both sides of the cemetery is part of a vision among Stern and other University planners to redefine the central campus. The new colleges are only one of many projects at the lower end of Science Hill, including new classrooms, an undergraduate theater and a new library.
Miller asked the question on many people’s minds: whether the economic crisis will have any effect on the college’s budget, which has been estimated at as much as $600 million.
Stern said, based on his meeting with top University officers Wednesday morning, that the new colleges will not be compromised.
Lee West ’10 said Stern clarified what he could about the new colleges and showed that he was thinking seriously about the remaining questions.
“I’m glad to see it’s being planned so meticulously,” West said.
Stern was announced as the architect of the colleges in September.
Comments
None 3 years, 7 months ago
1, you're completely wrong.
across this entire country university housing is built almost exclusively with hallways and corridor systems. entryways are one of the few things that make yale's residential college experience so very special. what's the least desirable housing location at yale? swingspace. and one of the main reasons for this is its hallway system.
one thing that makes entryways special is the way in which they very clearly place you within the larger yale community. at another college, if someone asks you where you live and you say "_ dorm, 4th floor" you're one of probably dozens of rooms on that floor. at yale, if someone asks you where you live, you can say "__college, entryway A, 2nd floor" and you are able to precisely locate yourself within the context of a larger campus. that means something- it gives a student a sense of place. it's one of the many things that makes the yale experience so special.
i'm sorry, #1, that your freshman experience is detached and isolated. but this has nothing to do with your entryway- it's due to the fact that harvard, well, sucks.
None 3 years, 7 months ago
why do yalies love entryways and princeton kids hate them? Do we revel in our differences, even if they are awkward?
None 3 years, 7 months ago
DO Princeton kids hate them? I was under the impression most people dislike the entryway-less Whitman interior, but perhaps that was just a more vocal minority.
For the sake of argument I'll stick with #6's reasoning: Hearty Yalies don't mind climbing stairs.
None 3 years, 6 months ago
Maybe Princeton kids hate entryways, but then realized they hated hallways too once they finally got them.
By the way, I've heard tons of Yalies complain about stairs. You would be amazed how many I see take an elevator for a distance of a single floor or two. Ugh. What laziness.
None 3 years, 7 months ago
I just wanted to offer a comment here. I am a student at Harvard College and I think the entryway system is perhaps the worst possible way to (a) build community and (b) accommodate housing. Yale has always been known for its far better ability in building community than Harvard has ever given sight to. I think a primary reason behind this is that all of the Harvard freshman dorms are built up entryways. The entryways can often be detaching, isolating, and impossible to work with. For the sake of maintaing Yale's brilliant leadership in community I think entryway's should be avoided at all costs.
None 3 years, 7 months ago
picked up on a local blog
http://www.designnewhaven.com/2008/10/skyline-features-surrounded-by-moats.html
None 3 years, 7 months ago
The entryway system at Yale is credited with the exact opposite of what our supposed Harvard commenter claims. Stern made a point of promising we would not have the same issue Princeton goes with Whitman (long, void-like hallways)... the entryway system has always been used with the res. colleges to great success and will continue in this manner.
Yale is known for its greater ability to create community than Harvard because of the people that go here and the superior res. college system.
None 3 years, 7 months ago
1: Your comment does not seem to be reflected in the experiences of Yale undergrads.
None 3 years, 7 months ago
1, are you aware that all Yale students, freshman through seniors currently live in entryways? (except for a few in annexed housing)
Well, we do. So among all the issues with the colleges, this is perhaps the most obvious, but also irrelevant.
None 3 years, 7 months ago
At Princeton, they too have recently abandonded entryways because they were found to be socially isolating (because you're vertically connected with your neighbors rather than horizontally connected). As they gradually get to renovating all of their gothic dorms, they are adding in corridors to replace entryways wherever possible.
So I don't know what's right. Maybe Yalies socialize vertically and Princeton kids are too lazy to walk up stairs / don't built loyalty to anything besides their eating club>?
None 3 years, 7 months ago
You realize that Yale already uses entryways in nearly all of its colleges and in all freshman housing, don't you? We build good communities anyway, entryways don't detract from that.
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