The Ken Burns Wing of the Jerome Liebling Center for Film, Photography, and Video at Hampshire College A 6,600 square foot addition to the existing Film, Photography, and Video Department.
Hampshire College, located in the heart of the Pioneer Valley in Amherst, MA, has been the model of a uniquely individualized liberal arts education since it admitted its first students in 1970. Since that time, it has proudly based its curriculum on the philosophy that a college education should be student driven, created around the individual student’s curiosity, and strengthened through close mentoring relationships with professors. As a result, the student body varies widely in background and areas of study. In response, the academic buildings on campus must accommodate a range of programmatic intent within their walls. The Charles and Polly Longsworth Arts Village provides a core for the fine arts. Among the buildings creating this complex is the Jerome Liebling Center, home to the film, photography, and video departments.
Site Map: Hampshire College
Charles and Polly Longsworth Arts Village Ken Burns Wing of the Liebling Center Site
Rendering showing strong diagonal of addition along pedestrian pathways.
Franklin Patterson Hall
Ken Burns Wing of the Liebling Center
The addition of the Ken Burns Wing of the Liebling Center needed to accommodate the existing strong diagonal connection between the Longsworth Arts Village and the adjacent Franklin Patterson Hall. The addition recognizes and celebrates this axis, beginning with pedestrian pathways leading to and from the addition and continuing in the interior with a main hallway and gallery space that pierces the built form. In this way, a direct visual and physical connection is maintained between the two spaces.
AIA New England Design Awards Project Type: Educational
Project Type: Higher Education, classrooms, labs and offices, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA
Responsibility: Full service from conceptual design to occupancy
Program and Special Constraints: —Projection Classrooms (screening /lecture room/gallery) —Digital Classrooms (software instruction, project development, teaching and criticism) —Student Laboratories (Student production spaces with different software/hardware platforms) —Faculty Offices
Site Description: An addition to the campus ‘Arts Village’, a complex containing music, dance, fine art, film and photography.
Design Solution: A one –story addition related to but distinct from the architectural vocabulary of the Arts Village. The plan concept expresses a diagonal pedestrian vector connecting the Arts Village courtyard to an adjacent complex, Franklin Patterson Hall. The building massing takes advantage of the required ceiling height of the new Projection Classroom to reconcile the existing two-story mass of the existing adjacent building with the new one-story addition.
Original or Adaption of a Prototype?: Original
Unusual or Innovative Building Components: —Industrial steel siding, rain-screen configuration. —Clerestory-lit gallery/corridor
Sustainable Design Elements: —Energy efficient, tight, high-R envelope, sophisticated and well controlled HVAC system, photo-voltaics, pending LEED-gold Certification —Interactive energy display providing information about global climate change, energy efficiency, campus energy programs, and detailed trend data on the energy performance of the building.
Universal Design Elements: All public and staff spaces, exterior and interior, fully accessible.
Materials Used: Steel frame, metal stud exterior wall, horizontal steel siding in rain-screen configuration, walls insulated with 6” of dense-pack cellulose and 2” of continuous EPS insulation, roofs with 6” of isocyanurate insulation, thermal-break storefront glazing with high-performance low-e insulating glass, exposed structure on interior, hardened and sealed concrete radiant floors in public spaces.
Parking: No new parking provided. Three existing spaces dedicated for fuel-efficient vehicles.
Completion Date: 2009
Construction Budget: $1.9 m new construction; $0.3 m renovation.
Cost/sf, new construction: $284/sf
Others Involved: Faculty and administrative building committee, donor Ken Burns, dedicatee Jerome Liebling
As an addition to the existing cluster of buildings making up the Longsworth Arts Village, the Ken Burns Wing of the Liebling Center needed to reference the formal character and materiality of the surrounding built forms as well as reflect the highly individual and creative educational platform embodied in the Arts Village. The use of corrugated siding as seen in the adjacent buildings makes a material connection, while the horizontal orientation and scale of the new siding sets the addition apart as its own form. Similarly, the addition formally references its setting through the use of long horizontal volumes but makes an energetic departure with its cantilevered entrance, rotated forms, and shifting roof planes.
Horizontal Siding Detail
Liebling Center Entrance
Northeast view of the Liebling Center
The entrance into the Liebling Center addition angles towards Franklin Patterson Hall, reinforcing again this axis across campus. In the same way that the entrance extends and turns to welcome its users, the landscape design curves around the immediate exterior, receiving those exiting the space. This creates an exterior space that serves as a common space for students and faculty to gather as well as a small outdoor reception area for the facility to utilize during showings of student film and openings at the gallery.
Landscape Sketch
Faculty Offices
Joukowsky Wing: Existing
Ken Burns Wing: Addition
4.6 kW Photovoltaic Array
Equipment & Editing
Gallery Extension
Darkroom Photographic Suite Second Floor Plan
Digital Classrooms
Projection Classrooms
Leo Model Gallery
Mechanical Rooms
Toilet Rooms First Floor Plan
Second Floor Program: Work on the second floor of the Joukowsky Wing involved renovations of the existing department spaces. This included the creation of two new digital laboratories and a photography studio. New finishes were provided in these areas. From the Second Floor, users can view the Model Gallery below.
First Floor Program: New finishes were provided in the existing wing, tying together both wings of the department into a cohesive whole. The Ken Burns Wing addition created space for new student digital production facilities, consolidated offices for all department faculty, and introduced two large teaching spaces, one specializing in teaching in digital media, the other providing a long needed large projection classroom for teaching, film and video screening, and display of student photography.
View of new Entry and Lounge, looking toward existing wing
Building Section through Main Hall, looking East
Central to the Ken Burns Wing is the Main Hall Gallery, providing display for student work and photographic exhibits. Natural light from the clerestory above fills the gallery and highlights the curved display wall with a ribbon of light. The exposed structure highlights the form of the volumes, especially on the east wall where the exposed line of the steel reflects the slope of the roof on the exterior. The Main Hall Gallery, along with the Leo Model Gallery in the existing Joukowsky Wing, is intended to serve as a focus for student social and artistic life in the department. The Gallery forms the spine of the addition and as such all users of the space pass through to view the exhibits. Historically, space constraints have meant that the members of the department faculty have been dispersed around campus in several locations. Now all have new offices in the hallway stemming off of the Main Hall Gallery, thereby consolidating the department and strengthening its presence on campus. a.
b. a. Main Hall Gallery, looking South toward Entrance
b. Main Hall Gallery, looking North
Projection Classroom: Before the addition of the Projection Classroom, students did not have a space suited specifically for film classes and showings of student films. Up to 95 people can be accommodated in the classroom, 34 of whom can enjoy the fixed theater seating that is currently being installed on the risers. The room features a theater-quality projection screen and equipment. In addition, the side walls are outfitted with hanging tracks and lighting so that the space can double as a gallery as needed. The room is painted in “18% Grey,� known to photographers as the tone needed to properly calibrate the light settings on their cameras. In this way, the space allows for flexible use, making it well suited to the multidisciplinary needs of the faculty and students. New Projection Classroom
Energy Efficient Design: In support of sustainable building practices and in fulfillment of the requirements for LEED Gold Certification, the Liebling Center utilizes several sustainable and efficient design elements, such as: High Performance Building Envelope with a Sidewall R-Factor of 31and Roof R-Factor of 36, Low E Argon filled insulating glass and thermally broken windows, and a continuous air barrier. Passive Heating through south glazing. 4.6 kW Photovoltaic Array Efficient HVAC Systems with a CO2 sensing demand-controlled ventilation and energy recovery. Occupancy and Daylight Sensing Lighting Controls
Energy Display
Recycled Products heavily used, such as steel, wall framing, reinforcing bar, concrete, and insulation. Low or Zero VOC paints, sealants, and adhesives Zero-formaldehyde wood panel products amd FSC Certified woodwork As a tangible display of the building’s energy use, a display wall is prominently featured in the main hallway highlighting energy generation and consumption. As the Liebling Center has been in use since May 2009 it is not yet possible to evaluate the operational efficiency of the building over a year’s operation. The energy targets for the building are: Electricity:151,834 kBtu/year (44,500 kWh/year) Natural Gas -- 50,000 kBtu/year (500 therms/year) Design site energy use intensity is 30.4 kBtuh/sf/year, a 35% reduction compared to average school buildings in the EPA database. This puts the energy performance of the addition at the 90th percentile for school buildings in the EPA database.