As the University of Massachusetts Amherst celebrates its 150th academic year, the New Academic Classroom Building (NACB) marks the beginning of a new attitude in Campus development and planning for the University. Instead of sprawling out beyond the current campus limits, UMass Amherst has focused its attention inward to the campus pond where Copley Wolff Design Group (CWDG) has designed a new student quad, currently under construction, to transform the pond into a well-known campus icon, unique only to UMass Amherst.
Originally constructed for agricultural purposes, the campus pond was strictly utilitarian in character, supporting orchard irrigation and fire protection needs. In the early 1900s, Frank A. Waugh transitioned the pond into a soft, naturalized campus feature with native flora and fauna, intending the pond to be a passive ‘central park’ space. Through its historical development, the pond was either utilitarian or natural, but never both. As our environment becomes more and more constructed, CWDG stressed that the new quad design must embrace both functional and naturalistic activities. It is the union of utility and nature that forms a campus icon.
Hosting almost 30,000 students, UMass Amherst’s outdoor spaces serve many functions and purposes such as dining, academic learning, and recreation – all modern day utilitarian operations of a college campus. Working closely with the architectural team from Stantec Inc., CWDG’s landscape design integrates new student nodes with ecological practices including practices including UMass Amherst’s first inhabitable green roof. The student nodes, consisting of café terraces at the Student Union and Campus Center and sustainably harvested hardwood bench lookouts, are positioned to maximize student exposure to infiltration gardens and the campus pond. A universally accessible promenade connects the Eastern Campus with the West and North by way of a reconstructed dike and native pond edge. Planned for use by approximately 3,600 students per classroom hour, the pond edge and campus quad will become the new hub of the University and establish the pond as UMass Amherst’s unique campus icon.
The landscape for the New Academic Classroom Building is currently under construction and is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2014. It is targeting LEED Gold status. The $95 million building and surrounding landscape will establish UMass Amherst as an institution dedicated to collaborative, interactive academic spaces both inside and out.
Cortney Kirk is a landscape architect at Copley Wolff Design Group in Boston.
