Page 3 - College Planning & Management, April 2018

Campus Scene IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Carleton College Unveils Music Addition
CARLETON COLLEGE IN NORTHFIELD, MN, recently celebrated the opening of a new 55,000-square-foot addition, the Music and Performance Commons, at the Weitz Center for Creativity. The Weitz Center addition, designed by HGA, unites the music department for the first time and furthers the college’s strategic plan by gather- ing theater, dance, cinema, media studies, and now music into one dynamic facility.
The addition supports a broad range of music programming needs for the college and the Northfield community, including a 400-seat performance hall, a variety of rehearsal spaces for individuals or small groups, faculty offices and studios, practice rooms, teaching studios, and informal collaborative spaces. Each space was designed with the flexibility to welcome students from all disciplines into the building for study, practice, research, exploration, and performance.
The addition nestles into a tight residential site, bordered by a street and a city park, within a height-restricted neighborhood. By innovatively designing the build- ing and its program for maximum flexibility, incorporating large windows to reduce scale and massing, and using exterior materials that complement those of nearby structures, the design blends in seamlessly with its surroundings while fulfilling all the music department’s needs.
Ask the Expert
This Month
Mass Communication
What can we learn about
campus communication
from K–12 districts?
HISTORICALLY, THERE WASN’T MUCH IN
common between primary/secondary schools and college campuses in terms of communication needs. Class bells weren’t useful. Campus size made paging systems impractical. But the advent of new technologies—and new threats— should prompt college facilities professionals to take some pointers from their K–12 cousins.
Many K–12 campuses have moved to network-based distributed communication— putting functions like paging, intercom, and bells on the LAN instead of separate hard- wired analog systems—as a way to increase efficiency, flexibility, and safety. Basically, that means a server, a software interface, and a variety of flexible IP-addressable endpoints
in classrooms, offices, and interior/exterior common areas. For example, staff can set
up different zones for voice paging or digital signage messages, and make changes anytime with a few clicks. Schools have also gained new safety functionality: panic buttons in classrooms, silent alerts, and instant triggering of lockdowns and all-clears from the office
or even a mobile device. Integrating all these functions under a single platform is a big plus.
Because the technology scales on infrastruc- ture are already present on campus, it makes sense for colleges to consider adapting it to their needs. Taking emergency preparedness as an example, how would an instructor alert others of a potential threat today? If locking doors were an appropriate response to that threat, how would you do it, and should the same process automate communication across the entire campus? Also important, do you have a way to tell everyone the emergency is over?
Many prominent K–12 districts have good answers to these questions. If yours aren’t quite so clear, it’s worth taking a closer look at the solutions they’ve been creating.
Jaime Mendez serves as architectural consultant at FrontRow. Contact him at JAIM@gofrontrow. com or visit gofrontrow.com/conductor.
Universities Partner
on $9.8M Hypersonics
Development Project
A $9.8 million U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory contract will team the Uni- versity of Tennessee (UT) System, Purdue University, and the University of Dayton Research Institute (in Ohio) on research and development of materials and struc- tures for reusable hypersonic vehicles to travel at speeds greater than five times the speed of sound. The University of Dayton
Research Institute is the lead institution on the project.
The Tennessee Department of Eco- nomic and Community Development has recognized aerospace and defense as a significant contributor to Tennessee’s economy, and this hypersonics project is intended to foster development of UT system-wide partnerships to enhance research and innovation in support of the sector.
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APRIL 2018 / COLLEGE PLANNING & MANAGEMENT 3