Special Campus Memo: Update on the Renovation and Expansion of ARH and Carnegie

This is the second in a series of updates about the planning process for the ARH-Carnegie renovation and expansion, which the campus is undertaking with the design firm EYP.

Where We Are Now

In the spring, we reported that the project had reached the program verification stage, which involves finalizing the functions to be included in the new ARH-Carnegie and their associated sizes. We are still in that stage but nearing its end. The ARH-Carnegie Planning Committee has been evaluating a final set of decisions about the details of the programs to make recommendations to the Building Projects Committee, which will accept or modify those recommendations and in turn pass them on to President Kington for modification or approval. Program elements under review range from core spaces to support our academic mission (the number, types, and sizes of classrooms, offices and student learning labs) to spaces to enhance the lived experience of occupants and visitors to the building (number and size of social and event spaces). We encourage the community to revisit the final report and appendices of the 2014 Academic Space Planning Committee which includes all of the program elements and their sizes. A final program document, as prepared by EYP, will be available as soon as we wrap up this critical planning phase.

As the program is finalized, we will turn to the process of designing the building itself, which will largely or entirely happen within the current academic year. We will use a process that involves the two committees mentioned above, liaisons to each of the future ARH-Carnegie departments, faculty and division meetings, open forums, and other ad hoc methods as appropriate. In the past six months, for example, as the committees working directly on the building planning have debated various program elements, they (in conjunction with EYP) have held meetings with regular, senior faculty status, and emeritus faculty; department and program liaisons; student representatives; groups representing DASIL, the Global Grinnell task force, Accessibility and Disability Services, and Sustainability Advisory Committee; and others. As we move forward, we hope to continue this active and vital engagement with the community. We are planning to schedule another campus forum as part of EYP's October campus visit (Oct 26-27). More details will be shared as plans take shape. We thank you for your continued involvement and feedback.

In the next few weeks, we have two small-scale activities to solicit feedback on specific design elements.

1. Over the summer, we equipped ARH 315 with a number of next-generation armchair tablet desks so that students and faculty can experience a new version of that furniture. You are welcome to stop by that room when there is no class meeting, check out the chairs, and let us know what you think.
2. Also, we will soon stage a mock-up of faculty offices to allow people to experience and comment on a variety of aspect ratios and configurations.

Here are some of the key issues that we are working on with EYP:

• Classrooms (continuing from the last update). In our last update, we reported that we were about to do a second survey of faculty to determine classroom needs for this project. We have completed that survey with a very strong response rate, for which we thank the participants. The registrar's staff and the project planners have been working to analyze and interpret the survey data so that we can determine as carefully as possible our needs for the present and future of our teaching in the new building.
• Offices (continuing from the last update). In our last update, we described the then-ongoing work of the Office Space Task Force, which subsequently concluded its work and reported its conclusions to the President. Those conclusions reaffirmed the College's commitment to support the work of local SFS faculty and many emeriti faculty with office space. The Task Force also recommended that, if the large number of offices contemplated for the ARH-Carnegie program exceeded the capacity of the building, the planners consider the use of another academic building as a place for faculty conducting scholarly projects. The President agreed that such alternative space, particularly Steiner Hall, may be appropriate for non-teaching faculty, and the planning committees are considering that possibility.
• Other programmatic elements (continuing from the last update). In our last update, we described the continuing work of EYP to gather information about entities such as Global Grinnell, DASIL, the Reading and Writing Labs, technology support, academic support offices, and other components of the program. Those conversations continue to inform the committees' work. The Global Grinnell Task Force communicated recommendations to the ARH-Carnegie Planning committee that included the possibility of consolidating international programming (OCS, CIS, and OISA) in the new building. The planning committees are currently considering that possibility.
• Planning for phasing and construction. A construction project of this magnitude will be disruptive and inconvenient. We are working with EYP and our construction manager (McGough Construction) to minimize the disruptions and, when they are unavoidable, to help members of the campus community continue their work as smoothly as possible. We anticipate that the biggest impact of the construction will be felt on the east sides of Carnegie (whose extruding "stacks" section will likely be demolished) and ARH, where rooms 102 and 302 may be taken offline. You have already seen and perhaps heard preliminary work regarding site and soil testing and interior hazardous materials testing on campus. Those of you who were here during the renovations of and additions to the Noyce Science Center will have some sense of the scale and duration of construction on this kind of project.
• Accessibility and sustainability. As we turn to the design phase, the values of accessibility and sustainability will continue to inform the planning process. A group from the Building Projects Committee has been working to hire an expert in building accessibility to assist in the design process, and the Weidt Group, a building energy specialist, is already slated to be part of the design process as it focuses on sustainability.

Moving Towards Design

The open forum in the spring invited the community to respond to EYP's presentation of three general strategies for approaching the design of the building. These were the first of what will be many iterative design concepts, each set stimulating new discussion and input. A large number of people-around 90-participated in the forum, and they expressed many and varied comments, which are gathered and summarized in the ARH/Carnegie documents folder. In the variety of comments, EYP did discern some sentiments that were broadly if not universally shared, such as a desire to have the new building create strong visual and traffic connections to south campus, a resistance to designs that make the addition feel too large and monolithic (like an "airport concourse"), and concern about the effects of a possible open courtyard related to weather and accessibility. These preferences and concerns will inform the design process as it moves forward.

The design process will include a large number of issues and decisions, from the placement of electrical outlets to broad principles of internal organization. One example of the latter is the question of organizing the internal "neighborhoods" of the new building. What people and functions need to be located near each other, in a building where many entities have good reasons to feel connected to many others? This is the kind of question we will bring to the campus in the coming months.

Related Documents

We have created a GrinnellShare folder that includes an overview of the ARH-Carnegie process from program verification to building occupancy, a set of frequently asked questions, EYP's collection of the reactions expressed in the spring campus forum, and a decision matrix that outlines the division of responsibilities for the Phase I projects. We will soon transition to a website that will include information about all three Phase I projects.

Further Conversation

If you have questions or comments about this process, you can talk to any member of the ARH-Carnegie Planning Committee, which includes Todd Armstrong, Julia Bauder, Keith Brouhle '96 (co-chair), Sondi Burnell, Paul Hutchison, Emma Lange '16, John Kalkbrenner, Kathy Kamp, David Lopatto, Claire Moisan, Pablo Silva, Erik Simpson (co-chair), and Jim Swartz (co-chair). Comments can also be sent to ARHCarnegiePlanning@grinnell.edu.

Thanks,

Keith Brouhle, Erik Simpson, and Jim Swartz, co-chairs, ARH Carnegie Planning Committee