AMHERST — The Boston Globe’s longtime architecture critic Robert Campbell argued that successful public spaces need activity and varied uses: places to sit, eat and drink, replete with opportunities for people to interact.
If that’s the criterion, the new Ford Student Center at Amherst College hits the mark. There isn’t a corner of the four-story, 144,000-square-foot building where people aren’t absorbed in a vast range of activities.
On a recent weekday afternoon, shortly after the space’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, students were taking a break from the pangs of student life by playing Ping-Pong, pool and foosball. Others sprawled out on couches with laptops, leaning into their work. Down a dramatic set of concrete stairs, students had just finished lunch at Betty’s Kitchen, the new first-floor dining hall.
The building also houses a theater and a pub, as well as a Muslim prayer room and an interfaith chapel.
“It consolidates everything into one space,” said sophomore Spencer Kreitzer, who had just taken time from homework to play table tennis.
“It’s a good balance between studying and then you could do something physical and then get back to work,” he said.
While doing homework on a couch, his friend Sam Davis, a junior, lauded the design. He likes it more than the library, which he said felt crowded and where he couldn’t get much done.
“I’d usually end up talking with people and stuff like that,” he said. “But here, there’s so many different spots.”
Gaby Rivera said the dining hall’s abundance of glass leaves little room for solitude, since she prefers to eat alone. Still, the sophomore said of the building, “I think it’s really nice.”
Betty’s Kitchen replaces Valentine Dining Hall as the primary place where meals are served to students, faculty, staff and visitors. Valentine opened in 1941 and housed both the college’s dining commons and dormitory rooms.
Betty’s Kitchen recognizes an anonymous donor’s grandmother and all of those who have fed, nurtured and inspired every member of the college community. The donor contributed $50 million toward the project.
The building itself is named after William Ford and his family. Ford is a graduate of 1983 who gave a separate $50 million contribution, among the largest donations in the school’s history. While officials declined to say how much the college spent to develop the center, The Amherst Student reported last spring that an original $200 million estimate had grown more than $300 million.
For Cami Nakagawa, the former dining hall felt more homey, and she is still adjusting.
“It had a more comfy, cutesy vibe,” the senior said. “This one feels a lot more open, like a mall. It almost feels like an airport where you can walk upstairs and downstairs and do whatever.”
But she did say the levels upstairs are cozier, and she has gone to visit friends who are in student groups.
Functional, playful, sustainable
The college has more than 100 student organizations and clubs. A fundamental goal of the building is to bring those organizations into a central location rather than keeping them scattered throughout campus, often in dormitory basements.
Tom Davies, associate vice president of planning, design and construction, described the goal as creating a place where students might walk past one club and discover another group meeting nearby. For example, a student going to chess club might see another student working on a jigsaw puzzle or discover a knitting group simply by walking past.
The building is intended to encourage those accidental encounters for at least the next 100 years.
Life in the building isn’t limited to people. Nature plays a central role both indoors and out.
In a central courtyard, a small gardened space with a miniature pond surrounded by moss-covered logs and native plants is enclosed by four floor-to-ceiling glass walls. The space gives the impression of viewing a human-scale terrarium. Meanwhile, the area’s sloping mountain ranges encircle the building, and windows provide a clear view stretching for miles.
That view until recently was obstructed by brick walls.
The new student center stands on the site of the Merrill Science Center, which served the campus from 1968 to 2018. But Merrill hasn’t entirely disappeared.
The new building, designed by the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron with Sasaki Associates, was built on the skeleton of the clunky brick predecessor on the site.
The concrete foundation was retained, “warts and all,” said Davies, as he pointed out the imperfections in the concrete. He showed how old metal brackets and other quirks remain embedded in the almost 60-year-old concrete pillars on the first floor.
Not only does the building burn no fossil fuels on-site, but it features solar panels and induction heating in the kitchen. Constructing the building on Merrill’s remains allowed the college to further reduce the carbon footprint associated with construction. And with a mass-timber frame made of black birch, the building is “leading by example,” said Davies.
“The focus on sustainability is something that’s really important to the college and to the designers,” he said. “Part of the reason for that is the population is growing globally.”
He added that, “It doesn’t matter how efficiently the building operates if the initial hit is really that significant.”
The New York Times noted a current debate about the future of college architecture. The Ford Student Center, the Times wrote, was “among the most assured” designs going up this year and praised its sustainability.
A deep, black, glossy overhang circumnavigates the building’s perimeter, covering a wood-beam terrace that will soon feature furniture. While the weather is often less than ideal during most of the academic year, Davies said the space allows students the option to be outside.
“It could be raining, it could be a hot day, it could be a cold day, but you could still be outside,” he said.
The exterior is stained cedar and has a glowing quality about it, like a newly stained deck. The building itself has a “horizontality,” as Davies described it, resting in the landscape rather than dominating it.
Rather than giving the impression of one massive structure, the building uses different roof lines, breaking the overall mass into what appear to be smaller buildings. Davies said this makes the scale more harmonious with the older, smaller buildings around the campus quad.
Davies showed his personal favorite feature: a “secret” spiral staircase leading to a lounge, made homey with an artificial fireplace. The stairs are illuminated by gentle LED lights on the handrail. The walls are fabric, the same color as many accents, including the aubergine couches.
“It brings in this notion that really we’re designing for 18- to 23-year-olds, and there’s a playfulness to this that speaks directly to that audience,” Davies said as he ascended the staircase. “It’s still beautiful and functional, but there’s also playfulness to it.”
