Harvard GSD's iconic Gund Hall will undergo a significant transformation and expansion, the school announced this morning. Selected for the task are Herzog & de Meuron as design consultant and Beyer Blinder Belle (BBB) as architect of record.
Designed by Australian architect John Andrews (himself a GSD graduate), the brutalist Gund Hall has served as the school's primary campus building since 1972. With the expansion, the administration hopes to add new space for growth and more cross-disciplinary engagement with other academic fields and programs at Harvard, primarily with the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
"The proposed new space will encourage new forms of cross-disciplinary collaboration by creating an anchored point of intersection among the School’s current studio workspace (known as 'the trays'), faculty and departmental offices, seminar rooms and classrooms, research library, production and fabrication facilities, and new interior spaces designed for informal meetings, social gatherings, and public programs," explains the project description. "The new addition is expected to add only a minimal amount to Gund Hall’s physical footprint, eliminating the need for additional land and thereby preserving Harvard GSD’s green space and basketball court."
H&dM founding partners, Jaques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, are no strangers at the GSD, having taught, lectured, exhibited there since the 1980s. "We have always admired the intellectual spirit and free-thinking atmosphere of the School with its mythic Gund Hall building. We envision transforming this building by excavating, adding, and connecting spaces that will support communication and exchange within the GSD community."
BBB recently completed a renewal of Harvard's Winthrop and Adams Houses and have worked with the university for more than 14 years.
Development of Herzog & de Meuron’s expansion concept and schematic design is currently underway and expected to be completed later this year.
14 Comments
Leave it alone!
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The DeMoron twins and Buyer Blunder Hell ... what could possibly go wrong?
The renderings and talk about this project will be fabulous. The built result, not so much.
Thought the original Gund building was a scale model for the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building in Washington, DC.
Looks like a 70's hotel atrium with out the big space.
guys these are pictures of the building as it exists...not renderings of the project.
They are going to ad on to the ad-on, or was the building originally designed like that?
Laughoutloud.
you are looking at the building (basically) as it was designed...the loading dock and some space by the library has been added. for
the addition, there was going to be a tower. now there isn't a tower? the press release makes it sound like its an addition on top of the current building
I hope the new plan is addition by addition, not addition by subtraction (the design strategy of today it seems)
It must be a joy to open up the monthly heating bill in the winter. Does it leak as well?
dude the roof leaks and has always leaked. it no longer leaks on students desks but every time it rains, the trash cans come out. the heating bill is...high. its all district heat and the university charges each building for the steam. Gund may be the most expensive building on campus
In all seriousness I think the current students could come up with something better than the existing building and maybe better than whatever the new architects are going to propose.
It would be interesting to see photos of the architectural buildings of all the colleges that offer the architecture degree.
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