In early March, the 80-seat Heights Restaurant & Bar opened on the 10th floor of the Smith Campus Center at Harvard University, in the heart of Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass. This is the latest addition to a “common spaces” initiative that Harvard’s former President Drew Faust launched in 2008 to create a singular area on campus where thousands of faculty, students, staff, and visitors can congregate.
Harvard now boasts 385,000 sf of dedicated community space within the H-shaped Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Campus Center. The public can access the first floor and most of the second floor of the Center, which along with the 10th floor underwent a 36-month reconstruction and renovation that was completed last September, and entailed the excavation of 975 tons of demolition debris.
This project’s community and user outreach was extensive, with 25 focus groups and a survey that received 600 responses. The University also conducted a furniture showcase in the fall of 2016, around the same time that construction began.
Harvard University's “One Harvard” concept creates a gathering place for students, faculty, staff, and the community. Image: Courtesy of Consigli Construction
These efforts helped inform the redesigns by Hopkins Architects. (Bruner/Cott & Associates was the executive architect.) Consigli Construction executed the complete gutting of the 10th floor, and selective remodeling on the two lower floors that include the Moise Y. Safra Welcome Pavilion and Plaza, says Todd McCabe, Consigli’s Vice President-Project Services, who with John Lehane, the firm’s Project Manager, spoke with BD+C last week.
The renovation recreated the building’s Arcade (where most of the restaurants are) from a dungeon-like “two stories of concrete,” says Lehane, to a more inviting space with “more glass, new programming, and a large landscape area” with three or four green walls irrigated with UV-filtered rainwater. (Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates was the landscape architect.)
He says that one of this project’s biggest challenges was restoring the building’s façade and expanding the former Holyoke Center, which required the structural demolition of a two-story annex over a parking garage and then putting a three-story building in its place. The building’s “front door” is now highlighted by a two-story curtainwall. There’s also a three-story curtainwall on the Holyoke Street side of the building.
The remodeled building includes several green walls that are irrigated by UV-filtered rainwater. Image: Consigli Construction
Outside, new plazas open onto two thoroughfares.
Lehane notes that “what often gets overlooked” in projects like these is the MEP system. Working with engineer Arup, Consigli dedicated a MEP manager to “trace out” the system in order to keep it operable, as 500 people continued to work in the Center during the renovation, and thousands more walked through it every day. (The Center houses several of the university’s departments as well as Harvard University Health Services.)
All told, there were between 20 and 25 Building Team members on this project, says McCabe, including Consigli’s VDC team, which used virtual design tools for communications and planning, especially for occupied areas within the building.
Related Stories
University Buildings | May 30, 2015
Texas senate approves $3 billion in bonds for university construction
For the first time in nearly a decade, Texas universities could soon have some state money for construction.
University Buildings | May 19, 2015
Special Report: How your firm can help struggling colleges and universities meet their building project goals
Building Teams that want to succeed in the higher education market have to help their clients find new funding sources, control costs, and provide the maximum value for every dollar.
University Buildings | May 19, 2015
Renovate or build new: How to resolve the eternal question
With capital budgets strained, renovation may be an increasingly attractive money-saving option for many college and universities.
University Buildings | May 19, 2015
KU Jayhawks take a gander at a P3 development
The P3 concept is getting a tryout at the University of Kansas, where state funding for construction has fallen from 20% of project costs to about 11% over the last 10 years.
University Buildings | May 5, 2015
Where the university students are (or will be)
SmithGroupJJR's Alexa Bush discusses changing demographics and the search for out-of-state students at public universities.
BIM and Information Technology | Apr 9, 2015
How one team solved a tricky daylighting problem with BIM/VDC tools, iterative design
SRG Partnership's Scott Mooney describes how Grasshopper, Diva, Rhino, and 3D printing were utilized to optimize a daylighting scheme at Oregon State University's new academic building.
Sponsored | University Buildings | Apr 8, 2015
Student Housing: The fight against mold starts in the bathroom
University Buildings | Apr 8, 2015
The competitive advantage of urban higher-ed institutions
In the coming years, urban colleges and universities will outperform their non-urban peers, bolstered by the 77 million Millennials who prefer to live in dense, diverse, and socially rich environments, writes SmithGroupJJR's Michael Johnson.
University Buildings | Mar 18, 2015
Academic incubators: Garage innovation meets higher education
Gensler's Jill Goebel and Christine Durman discuss the role of design in academic incubators, and why many universities are building them to foster student growth.
Retail Centers | Mar 10, 2015
Retrofit projects give dying malls new purpose
Approximately one-third of the country’s 1,200 enclosed malls are dead or dying. The good news is that a sizable portion of that building stock is being repurposed.
