Picture by: Civitas

A conceptual drawing illustrates College Street as a pedestrian walkway, looking south from Clary Street.

Beloit College is poised to enter a dramatic building and restoration phase after two years of intensive master-planning. Following a critical assessment of how existing campus facilities, landscapes, and logistics uphold Beloit’s academic mission, the process has now shifted to the future—to the execution of a plan that addresses the College’s needs for growth and change over the next 25 years.

This kind of planning is a first for the College, explains John Nicholas, Beloit’s treasurer and vice president for administration.

“We were on the one-building-at-a-time plan before,” Nicholas says. “But master-planning allows you to see how everything fits. You can’t build buildings in a vacuum.”

The plan also provides a solid framework to guide future decisions, says Hal Mayer’64, chair of the property committee of the College’s board of trustees and an advocate of long-term planning. “It means we now have a foundation and a plan to look to as we consider our needs for the next 20 to 25 years,” says Mayer.

Picture by: Civitas

An aerial view of campus illustrates long- and short-term goals of the Campus Master Plan, the most dramatic of which is the creation of pedestrian thoroughfares on College, Emerson, and Clary streets. One of the long-term goals also includes closing Woodward Avenue to through-traffic and developing the far northern edge of campus as a recreation center.

Civitas, a Denver, Colo.-based urban design planning and landscape architecture firm that is leading Beloit’s planning efforts, has been widely hailed for the inclusiveness and intelligence its principals brought to this major task, says Jim Sanger, chair of Beloit’s board of trustees. Sanger was able to direct funding toward the work Civitas did on the initial plan, as vice president and trustee for the Rath Foundation, which supports higher education.

By its nature, the Campus Master Plan takes a long-term view, but several projects are expected to move forward within the next five years. Some will set major precedents, including the planned construction of Beloit’s first-ever sustainable campus building—the Center for the Sciences—designed to be both highly functional and to set new standards for environmental responsibility and efficiency.

The short-term plan also includes implementing a decentralized parking plan, making the campus more pedestrian-friendly by closing parts of Emerson, College, and Clary streets to through-traffic, revitalizing and improving existing green spaces and natural areas along campus borders, and demolishing Chamberlin Hall once the new Center for the Sciences is finished. An earlier, proposed renovation to the World Affairs Center was shelved after faculty voiced a preference for a new humanities building, rather than having the College invest resources in adapting the former Carnegie library.

When Brock Spencer, Kohnstamm Professor of Chemistry, started teaching at Beloit in the mid-1960s, science faculty lectured to as many as 100 students at a time from the front of large halls. Now, very few science courses at Beloit contain more than 25 students and many classes are much smaller than that.

“We teach science today the same way science is done,” says Spencer. “Active engagement is much more effective than passive.”

That puts Chamberlin Hall of Science out of step with current science pedagogy, creating an irony that is difficult to ignore: Beloit’s science faculty are recognized national leaders in reforming the way science is taught to undergraduates, yet their teaching facility reflects the old paradigm.

Indeed, science faculty have all but abandoned the two large lecture halls in adjoining Mayer Hall, but they approached Chamberlin as one would expect scientists to do, collaborating with one another, experimenting with different teaching spaces depending on specific situations, and building on their knowledge from these experiences.

In this way, they’ve learned a great deal from Chamberlin’s limitations.

As the building’s mechanical features have begun to wear out, these experiences have informed discussions about a new building, which in various forms has been in the offing for nearly a decade, says Spencer, who serves on the planning committee for the Master Plan and chairs the committee on the Center for the Sciences.

Even in the earliest discussions, Spencer says everyone agreed that any new or renovated science building should put energy efficiency high on its list of priorities. Now, with the establishment of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification—an authoritative set of standards developed by the U.S. Green Building Council—Beloit has a way of gauging its decisions about the building.

With input from a broad range of constituencies, including students, and a design by Chicago-based architects Holabird and Root, Beloit is seeking LEED certification for the building at the silver level. In the state of Wisconsin, only six buildings have achieved LEED certification to date, while 23 are seeking the designation. So far, none is an academic science building.

Picture by: Civitas

This rendering of the Center for the Sciences shows the building as it will appear from the west. The 106,000 square-foot center will adhere to U.S. Green Building Council standards for sustainable architecture. The street in the foreground is Pleasant Street, also known as state Route 51.

The Center for the Sciences, a $30 million 106,000 square-foot building, is positioned to span Emerson Street—the west end of which is planned to be closed to through-traffic. Preceding its construction, a massive civil engineering project will relocate utilities, build an access road where Beloit’s tennis courts now stand (and move those courts to the Strong Stadium complex), and beef up the College’s capacity to air condition buildings from its chiller plant.

First and foremost, the Center for the Sciences will be a state-of-the art teaching facility, housing biochemistry, biology, chemistry, computer science, environmental studies, geology, mathematics, physics and astronomy, and psychology. The Center for Language Studies, Beloit’s intensive language program, will also make its summer home in the building.

Among the Center’s planned features are an astronomical viewing platform and remotely accessed telescopes; a visualization lab that features Geographical Information Systems (GIS), a GeoWall three-dimensional system, molecular visualization, and digital microscopy; a scanning electron microscopy lab; a nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy lab; a rooftop lab for renewable energy research; a 60-seat tiered auditorium/classroom and nearby conference center; an atrium with public displays and hands-on science exhibits; and kiosks for real-time display of the building’s energy and environmental performance. The latter presents a fascinating opportunity for students and faculty to do research on the functions of the building itself.

In terms of sustainability, the greatest efforts will go into energy conservation, Spencer explains. Sensors and other controls will maximize heating, ventilation, and air conditioning efficiency. A green, growing roof will provide insulation, while also conserving water and minimizing heat reflection and run-off. The building is designed to make the most of natural light, with all rooms oriented toward the structure’s exterior. Recycled materials will be used whenever possible, and construction practices will adhere to green industry standards.

Beloit College students had the rare opportunity of influencing the design of the building through an interdisciplinary class Spencer taught last spring called Sustainable Buildings. Students got up to speed on LEED certification and made recommendations to the architects. Class members also had a hand in shaping decisions regarding Beloit’s newest student residences at Clary Street and Park Avenue, applying the lobbying skills and knowledge of the technology they learned in class.

Making energy conservation a priority in new construction builds on equally progressive but less obvious strides the College made in 2004, when Beloit College, a division of the Environmental Protection Agency called Energy Star, and Johnson Controls, Milwaukee, Wis., formed a partnership to conserve energy. The result is the most extensive energy efficiency project of its kind on campus, including the installation of high-efficiency lighting and heating systems in existing buildings. These changes have already reduced energy consumption by 13 percent, saving 91,000 therms of natural gas and 1.3 million kilowatt-hours of electricity.

As elements of the Campus Master Plan are implemented, Beloit will become greener, both figuratively—as the College continues to use less energy—and literally, as the campus makes the most of existing landscapes and as stretches of Emerson, College, and Clary streets are transformed from car-clogged blacktop to swaths of green (click here to see the conceptual layout).

While these portions of former roadway will be closed to through-traffic, they will maintain the width and structure needed for service and emergency vehicles and for families during move-in day in the fall. The plan includes several small parking areas behind some existing College buildings, and new, expanded student parking behind the Moore Hall townhouses, which will reduce congestion on neighborhood streets. The walkable campus will be safer, with fewer cars, added lighting, and pedestrian-scaled landscaping.

“The biggest immediate highlight of the Master Plan is the whole idea of street closings,” says Spencer. “That will totally change the character of campus and reinforce the residential aspect of campus,” he says. Spencer recalls that, originally, everyone assumed that blending the academic and residential precincts of campus would strengthen the College’s residential community. However, in meetings and focus groups, students made it clear that they preferred the current separation between residential and academic precincts. “Everyone likes to go home at night,” Spencer says, with a shrug and a smile.

While the academic and residential quadrants will remain on separate ends of campus, a restoration of oak savanna and native plants along the entire western edge of College property will unify the two and forge a stronger connection to the community.

During studies of the campus perimeter, Civitas planners led discussions that considered how the campus looks as people move around its edges and enter College property. Oddly, Beloit’s western border presents a proverbial wall to the passerby, with the towering backs of Pearsons Hall and Chamberlin turning away from the city, the river, and the movement of the state highway below. On other edges of campus, it is unclear exactly where the campus begins and ends.

“Chamberlin Hall has no visible entrance and sits like a monolith on a hill, with no sense of belonging to the landscape,” says Nicholas, who also notes that plans for the new Center for the Sciences include lowering the western face of the campus by 14 feet. “This will change the sight lines and engage the community with the College. We’ll be getting the College off the hill.”

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A draft of the Campus Master Plan as of April 2004 and more drawings can be viewed on the home page of the College Web site. Because it is an evolving document, portions of the recommendations section have already changed.

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Photo by: Dan Lassiter

Trustee Don Carson’71 talks with students about future plans for the campus at an ice cream social held in the Commons dining room.

The Beloit College board of trustees and the campus campaign leadership committee officially unveiled the Master Plan at a celebration they hosted for faculty and staff in October.

At a ceremony held at the intersection of Emerson and College streets, guests could visualize the site’s future as a pedestrian thoroughfare—one of the key features of the plan—as they stood on temporarily installed sod fitted over existing blacktop.

A group of trustees, students, and campaign leaders donned construction helmets before breaking up a section of blacktop to symbolize the future removal of the pavement.

Later, faculty, staff, and trustees gathered for dinner beneath a large tent located on the approximate site of the future science building. Table arrangements of native flowering plants and interpretive displays of green building materials highlighted the environmentally conscious thrust of the Master Plan.

Trustees also hosted an ice cream social in Commons, where they discussed details of the Master Plan with students.

At the ceremony, Tom McBride, Keefer and Keefer Professor of the Humanities and chair of the faculty/staff campaign steering committee, talked about the sense of community at Beloit and everyone’s role in making the College even stronger. “Daniel Webster once said, of another school that was also established by New Englanders, ‘a small school, sir, but there are those who love it.’ Of Beloit we may rightly say, ‘a small school but one with big ideas; and these, madam and sir, we shall attain.’”

Picture by: Civitas

(A) The proposed location of the new Center for The Sciences straddles Emerson Street, with its imprint just north of the existing Chamberlin Hall. (B) Plans call for closing Emerson to through-traffic from its intersection with College Street to the west. (C) The full stretch of College Street as a greenspace for pedestrians runs from its intersection with Chapin at the south to Clary at the north. (D) Plans for street closures include pedestrian-scaled landscaping and lights that will visually unify the academic and residential precincts of campus. A parking management plan with assigned spaces and smaller lots tucked behind buildings will reduce congestion on neighborhood streets, slow traffic speeds, and improve pedestrian safety. Note: Buildings were intentionally removed from this conceptual drawing to highlight elements of the campus plan.

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RELATED LINKS:

Campus Master Plan home page

"2006 Brings Housing Options," Beloit College Magazine, Fall/Winter 2005


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Susan Kasten - Editor, Beloit College Magazine