As the University’s most extensive period of construction since the 1970s continues, several buildings have opened their doors to students and faculty, while others are slated for completion within the next year. In addition to the buildings listed below, changes around Grounds include renovations to Garrett and Newcomb halls, a 1,700-square-foot expansion to the University Bookstore above the central parking garage, and the ongoing replacement of the Alderman Road residence halls.
Jefferson Scholars Center
Project Cost: Unavailable
Architect: VMDO
Completion Date: April 2010
Surrounding a courtyard, three interconnected buildings house the Jefferson Fellows Center, Foundation Hall and the foundation’s administrative offices. With spaces to study, teach and conduct research and lectures, the buildings encourage the interaction among Jefferson Fellows, graduate students from a wide array of academic disciplines.
Bavaro Hall
Project Cost: $37.4 million
Architect: Robert A.M. Stern Architects
Completion Date: July 2010
Located between Ruffner Hall and Emmet Street, this 64,149-square-foot, four-story building nearly doubles the space previously available to the Curry School of Education. Centralized faculty offices and clinics, conference rooms and a courtyard garden will enhance Curry faculty members’ ability to collaborate on projects and interact with students.
South Lawn Project—Phase I
Project Cost: $105 million
Architect: Moore Ruble Yudell with Glazerworks
Completion Date: August 2010
A 100-foot-wide, landscaped terrace across Jefferson Park Avenue connects the South Lawn Project with Central Grounds. The complex’s new academic buildings, Nau and Gibson halls, will house the history, politics and religious studies departments. The buildings are connected by a conservatory—with three-story glass walls—that contains lounge spaces and a café.
Rehearsal Hall
Project Cost: $12.7 million
Architect: William Rawn Associates
Completion Date: May 2011
The Cavalier Marching Band will have a new home in this 16,400-square-foot rehearsal hall on Culbreth Road. The facility will contain a 4,000-square-foot rehearsal room, multipurpose practice and teaching areas, instrument storage and administrative space.
College of Arts & Sciences Research Building
Project Cost: $88.9 million
Architect: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Completion Date: August 2011
Intended primarily for chemistry and biology research, this five-story, 100,000-square-foot building’s modern laboratory facilities—including wet lab and low-vibration space—will help relieve the increasing shortage of laboratory space on Grounds. It is connected to the existing chemistry and biology buildings with pedestrian links.
Rice Hall—Information Technology Engineering Building
Project Cost: $76.3 million
Architect: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Completion Date: August 2011
Rising from the corner of Whitehead and Stadium roads, this six-story, 100,000-square-foot information technology engineering building will provide space for computational research and student projects, classrooms, research laboratories, offices and a 150-seat auditorium for the School of Engineering.
Medical Center Projects
In addition to the numerous construction projects in various places on Grounds, the University continues to improve existing medical facilities and build new ones.
McLeod Hall—which housed the Nursing School for nearly 40 years until the opening of the Claude Moore Nursing Education Building—is undergoing an extensive renovation. A $59 million, six-story addition to the University Hospital will add 72
patient rooms by early 2012. The Barry and Bill Battle Building, projected to cost $75 million, will become the U.Va. Children’s Hospital’s new home on West Main St. Groundbreaking on the six-story building is expected in 2011.
Claude Moore Medical Education Building
Project Cost: $40.7 million
Architect: CO Architects with Train and Partners
Completion Date: May 2010
This five-story structure consolidates medical education programs currently scattered across Grounds and creates a central entrance to the School of Medicine. Among the building’s amenities are robotic simulation rooms where students will be introduced to emergency, obstetric and operating room experiences.
Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center
Project Cost: $74 million
Architect: Zimmer-Gunsul-Frasca Partnership
Completion Date: April 2011
This 150,000-square-foot building will house comprehensive outpatient services for adults diagnosed with cancer, consolidating oncology treatment and diagnostic services currently located throughout the Medical Center. The building includes a 29,000-square-foot, unfinished fifth floor for future expansion.
Comments
Though completed in 2006 and 2008, the renovation of Fayerweather Hall and the additions at the A-School are worth a mention.
Only Bavaro Hall follows in the traditional design of the beautiful UVa campus. The other new buildings are too modernistic in design and do not fit in with the beautiful and traditional look of UVa. Why must architects get away from tradition in a place where tradition is so strong and revered? Why did those at UVa who are responsible for building facilities approve these contemporary designs? The buildings, other than Bavaro Hall, could be on any campus anywhere in the USA. I wish that they were! Bravo to Robert A.M. Stern Architects for their traditional design yet modern functionality!
In response to Elaine, I would suggest that a wide range of beautiful but also innovative buildings would serve the students and faculty of the University well. Buildings represent ideas, and we will always have that grand classical idea at the heart of our Grounds. We need to alsovexplore new representations and manifestations of proportion and light, use new technologies, and let our people live and work and contribute to their creation. So let’s take the spirit of the Academical Village, of living and teaching and learning in a place that respects timeless truths as well as modern science, and expand it to include design that speaks to the present and the future.
I applaud the Architecture school for it’s cutting edge renovation and additions, and the College for its re-imagining of the classical motifs found on the Lawn. Let’s continue in the Jeffersonian tradition of bold and creative action. That is the UVA way.
It is all well and good to promote modern and “cutting edge” building design, but in the context of the University, does that type of design say something about this place, is it clear that we are looking at a new building sitting in a context with great and enduring history and traditions? Or could these buildings have been built anywhere? Most of them could have been built anywhere, they do not project an image of being at the University. Moore Ruble Yudell tried to achieve that at the South Lawn complex, mixing strictly modern features with serious references to the earlier architecture of the Grounds. This, to me, while not entirely successful, was a step in the right direction. Stern’s Bavaro Hall makes a very obvious attempt to relate to the University’s earlier architecture, and very successfully so, in my opinion. The others may have some brick, in a lack-lustre attempt to relate, but none of the others successfully says “Virginia” to me. In the end, while personal taste is subjective, I believe there is a timeless standard of beauty that many of these projects do not approach, and which I would certainly like to see in future buildings on the grounds. -Tony James, B.Arch.History ‘76.
I agree that Bavaro Hall, and to some extent the South Lawn Complex, are a better visual fit for Jefferson’s academic village. Unfortunately the University has a long history of poorly visualized grounds construction, partly due to the expansionist dogma that has run rampant over the past 40 years. One needs to look no further than the old Ed. School, Chemistry Building, and Gilmer Hall to understand the Universities ghastly piecemeal approach to building new additions to its hallowed grounds. The University grew too fast to allow for careful consideration to architectural styling. When it needed more buildings to accommodate more students, it just took brick to mortar and be damned about aesthetics. It has become a pastiche of structures rather than a gestalt. What the University needed then and still does today is a well thought out plan on how they want the grounds to look like after the brunt of expansionism has past, as it eventually must. Right now, their approach is a knee jerk reaction to what they deem as an immediate and pressing need. It’s time to take the long view.
It is with great sadness that I add my voice of impassioned opposition to all those who have already cried out against the apparently mad rash of building projects at U.VA.in which little to no attempt has been made to maintain the architectural integrity and splendor of what so many have,at least up until recently, deemed the most beautiful campus in America. As has been noted by the other commentators, only Bavaro Hall bears any reasonable resemblance to the mainstream design of the buildings on the University campus. The design and layout of the Darden School of Business is proof that things can be done right. Apparently, little foresight was involved in the planning and erection of these new structures that represent a step-up in a seemingly never-ending building expansion on college grounds that are finite. The “powers that be” at U.VA. don’t seem to realize (or, perhaps, care) that maintaining the reputation, charm, and beauty of the campus is—to no small extent—as vital as its academic successes in maintaining the University’s famed image throughout the world. If this destructive trend is not soon halted, U.VA. will, like so many other schools gone expansion-wild,slip into an aethestic quagmire from which it will not be able to extricate itself. Moreover, there needs to be a recognition on the part of the people “on top” that the idea of endless building in an attempt to accommodate a seemingly limitless future expansion of the school’s student enrollment is neither practical nor desirable in the long run because it will—and already is—leading to the evisceration of the architectural soul of the University grounds through the slapping together of eclectic building styles and the gradual wiping out of structure-free green spaces. Ultimately, a sense of confinement will creep across the campus and the “U.VA. experience” that has lived on in the hearts and memories of so many graduates and visitors will fade into the mists of a distant past. Surely, should this come to pass it will be a pity and a crime. While I do not believe it is too late to stop this destructive trend, it must be faced up to and done NOW or the results, I fear, will become irreversible.
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