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May 16, 2006
North Quad featured in LSA Magazine
There is an article about North Quad in LSA Magazine's latest issue here. It is a cheerleading article about the new dorm with the following comments about the Frieze Building from Robert Johnston, Director of Facilities and Operations for the College of LSA:
The building was built for high school students at the turn of the century. It has wide corridors, a poor structure, bad heating, no air conditioning and the windows are rotting out. If we kept the building we would be locked into its inefficiencies. It was not built to do what we’re asking of it now.
He also says that they did not make the decision lightly to demolish the Frieze Building.
Here is another old high school which was turned into housing. Cross Steet Village in Ypsilanti was formerly Ypsilanti's High School, today it is 104 apartments of moderate income housing for senior citizens. The original details of the high school were preserved as much as possible and the wide hallways have been furnished to create spaces in which chance encounters can take place in the commons (remember high school?)
Here is another old school which had many of the same "problems" the Frieze Building has. It also has many of the same historic, architecturally significant and beautiful features, too. The Leland Lofts was originally built in 1918 as the Nellie Leland School for Crippled Children. The architect, Malcomson and Higginbotham, was the same architect as the high school part of the Frieze Building. It didn't have air conditioning-so the developer installed it, along with Thermo-pane Windows.
According to this website the developer "is a really cool guy that has a personal interest in the city and believes in maintaining some integrity to the buildings he renovates." And according to the Leland Lofts website he is going to restore many of the "unique, unusual features" including a ramp from the first to the third floor which accomodated the original users of the school. The Leland Lofts has 32 condominiums.
These two projects demonstrate what is possible with old school buildings-if the developer is smart and creative they are very adaptable.
Posted by dfulmer at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2006
Charleston High School
Another reused high school from the Chronicle is this one in Charleston, South Carolina from the 1920s. The Medical University of South Carolina had owned it for more than 10 years. It was empty and damaged by water and fire. At one point they planned to put a parking structure behind the preserved facade. This plan was criticised by preservationists.
The $15.5 million project involved extensive demolition-only the original entrance and three other walls of the original building are incorporated into the College of Health Professions. Another new building was built next to the high school and the two house classrooms, labs and offices.
The project satisfied the preservationists desire to keep this reminder of the past along with the college's desire for more space.
Posted by dfulmer at 01:02 PM | Comments (0)
Academy Hall-Renovated School Building
The Chronicle of Higher Education's Campus Architecture section featured this school building renovated by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to be “one-stop shopping” for Rensselaer students by integrating student services in a centralized location on campus.
Originally built in 1923 as Troy Public School 14, Rensselaer bought it in the 1990s and renovated it. It now includes the student health center, Greek Life office and many other student related offices. Rensselaer spent 2 years and $6.2 million on the adaptive reuse project. According to a press release: “Academy Hall is also becoming an anchor for the entire new 15th Street corridor, where projects large and small are creating a new campus “main street,” especially for student-centered activities.”
Posted by dfulmer at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2006
Frieze Frame on BlackBox Radio
On April 25, 2006 BlackBox Radio featured some of the recordings made of memories of the Frieze Building for Frieze Frame. Here is their blog and you can listen to the show from this link.
Posted by dfulmer at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)
May 01, 2006
Polshek Partnership Architects of New York will redesign North Quad
Judy McGovern reported in yesterday's Ann Arbor News that Polshek Partnership Architects of New York will redesign the exterior of North Quad. Their one design in Ann Arbor is the Biomedical Science Research Building.
Without having seen the new design Judy McGovern is extremely optimistic about the results: "the historic preservationists and graduates of the former Ann Arbor High School who tried to dissuade the University of Michigan from razing the Beaux Arts building did - in fact - help save Ann Arbor from a nondescript or perhaps even homely building." She doesn't consider the possibility that the new design could be even worse.
Archived below.
Frieze will fall but aesthetic bar has risen
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Between the condition of the 1907 structure and its prime location, there was simply no "saving'' the Frieze Building.
However, the historic preservationists and graduates of the former Ann Arbor High School who tried to dissuade the University of Michigan from razing the Beaux Arts building did - in fact - help save Ann Arbor from a nondescript or perhaps even homely building. At least they helped give U-M another chance to get it right.
The architects did a great job accommodating the academic departments that, along with a 500-bed dorm, will occupy the new North Quad complex, says Ann Arbor resident and U-M Regent Rebecca McGowan.
But in the course of juggling what were undoubtedly competing interests for space and function inside the 350,000-square-foot facility, the facade got short shrift.
Indeed, it seems that the design for the front of the new building was so lackluster that as community members touted the aesthetic qualities of the Frieze Building and university officials looked at what was to have been the final design of its successor, the latter had second thoughts.
The plans - as folks following the project know - were withdrawn a day before they were to go to the Board of Regents for approval.
The commitment to the project hasn't changed, says McGowan. Nor is anything about the plan for the inside of the $137 million complex being altered.
But the new building's State Street front?
That's gone back to the drawing board.
"That location is the western gate to the university. It's going to be the first things some visitors see and a repeated reminder of the university for those of us who go by it every day,'' says McGowan, a two-term Democrat. "It's an important portal and the building needs to indicate that, seriousness of purpose and the importance of the site.''
The save-the-Frieze activists, she says, helped "articulate the importance of the State Street facade.''
One of three Ann Arbor residents of the eight-member board, McGowan is very much in tune with community members' opinions about what's going up on campus. And in this case, she had family members as well as friends and neighbors to contend with.
"My father-in-law went to school in the Frieze Building,'' says McGowan who - after examining the building top to bottom - says she asked for and received her family's OK, or at least forgiveness, for the decision. The building, she says, is simply "spent.''
The architects who designed the new, and well received, Biomedical Science Research Building on Washtenaw Avenue, have been asked to work on the North Quad facade, McGowan says. Polshek Partnership Architects of New York, whose BSRB sports the potato chip-shaped auditorium, will work with North Quad architects Einhorn Yaffee Prescott of Albany, N.Y., on redesigning that front.
"Everybody on the project gets the message,'' McGowan says.
More often than not, U-M decides what it wants and then crashes ahead apropos its role as an 800-pound gorilla, unfettered by local building or planning processes and unfazed by the squeals of the lesser creatures around it.
This time, the squeals registered. And though the friends of the Frieze didn't achieve their goal, they did achieve that much. And the university and the community are better for it.
Judy McGovern is managing editor, features, at The News.
Posted by dfulmer at 08:50 AM | Comments (0)
Letter to the Editor
Here is a letter to the editor from Sunday's Ann Arbor News urging the University to recycle to facade of the Frieze Building: "I am confident that those same University of Michigan administrators, regents, architects, engineers, construction managers and preservationists for whom we sing with such confidence, "Hail to the Victors valiant, hail to the conquering heroes,'' can save the architecturally significant facade of the Frieze Building and incorporate its historic character and defining features into a modern building that can safely and effectively meet current needs."
Archived below.
LETTERS
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Save Frieze facade for
a new, beautiful use
As a young child, I traveled from Jackson to Ann Arbor to watch my first performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream'' in the auditorium of the Frieze Building. To my young mind, the majestic Frieze was the Parthenon! As Ann Arbor residents since 1969, our family has treasured the historic Frieze Building as a symbol of Ann Arbor's civic pride, a center of educational and cultural activity and a local architectural landmark on a corner it shares with some of the most beautiful buildings in Ann Arbor.
It is no doubt a challenge to use older buildings to meet today's needs, but I am confident that those same University of Michigan administrators, regents, architects, engineers, construction managers and preservationists for whom we sing with such confidence, "Hail to the Victors valiant, hail to the conquering heroes,'' can save the architecturally significant facade of the Frieze Building and incorporate its historic character and defining features into a modern building that can safely and effectively meet current needs.
When it acquired the Frieze Building, U-M also acquired a responsibility of stewardship to the people of Ann Arbor and to the citizens of Michigan. Save the Frieze facade. Incorporate part of the history and heritage of Ann Arbor into a new and beautiful use. We ask the university to do this on behalf of all of us.
Susan H. Patton, Ann Arbor
Posted by dfulmer at 08:47 AM | Comments (0)