Hanover, NH – Leers Weinzapfel Associates announced the completion of Anonymous Hall at Dartmouth College. The building is part of a wider campus renewal plan.
View of stairs from conference room
Named for alumni and friends who have quietly supported the college over two centuries, the $28 million project transforms a vacant 1960s library into an administrative and social center for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The 32,995sf project includes new entrances for surrounding structures, a wide pedestrian bridge, and new circulation between buildings.
The demolition of an unused laboratory adjacent to the former Dana Hall made way for an addition, which reorients the building to create campus connections to the south. The addition houses the lobby and a cafe with an adjacent terrace overlooking a green. Tied together by a spiral object stair visible from the south lawn, the building’s upper floors contain collegial faculty offices, classrooms, and places for interactive student gathering.
Roof terrace
The rooftop level features a solar paneled canopy and a south-facing planted terrace that overlooks the Vermont hills, Baker Tower, and the iconic main campus. The walk-out graduate student lounge in the lower level opens to a protected courtyard below a pedestrian bridge.
The building was stripped to its columns and slabs to remove hazardous materials in the existing library walls before construction could begin. As a reused concrete structure in a cold climate, the choices of highly insulated terracotta-clad walls, triple glazed windows, and a photovoltaic canopy created a building with low embodied energy that approaches net zero energy usage.
Main spiral stairs
The facade system is first-of-its-kind in the U.S., comprising multiple advanced technologies including vacuum insulated panels, krypton filled triple glazing, metal mesh integral shading, and toggle-held structural glazing (2 inch IGUs).
