Research-ready: Smith College's $73 million Ford Hall melds science study, research
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NORTHAMPTON - Rising above a divisive zoning controversy, after 2½ years and $73 million spent, Smith College's 140,000-square-foot Ford Hall is a couple of weeks and a punch list from completion.
Biological sciences professor Stylianos P. Scordilis, as special assistant to president Carol Christ for the new science building, is clearly pumped.
During a press tour Wednesday, Scordilis pointed to the "cutting-edge, state-of-the-art" features that this science and engineering facility brings to a science-loving campus that he said has "desperately needed" such an upgrade.
Impressive from the outside, it's really two buildings connected by a soaring atrium of glass and girders.
It replaces college-owned apartment buildings on Belmont and other buildings on Green Street, torn down in 2007. Though Smith offered replacement housing, many lamented the loss to a close-knit neighborhood.
The public can get a look inside Ford Hall when it is dedicated Oct. 16.
Architectural features such as mill-style windows reflect the Valley's industrial history. But what's inside - the energy-efficient infrastructure and open, collaborative lab and conference spaces - pushes into the future of interdisciplinary scientific research, integrating engineering and the sciences, according to Scordilis.
"The building is an experiment," Scordilis said.
And indeed, Smith is hoping for a silver LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for Ford Hall, with "sustainable" features such as an acre roof garden that gathers "gray water" for use in the building, infrastructure for solar panels, and large windows and sensors to take advantage of natural light.
But another part of the experiment has to do with how research is to be done in this building.
Escaping the maze of labs and offices many scientists grew up with, Ford Hall is an example of the open classroom. The north end houses "dry labs" - computer science/robotics and engineering. Spaces are open, making talk and collaboration easier, according to Scordilis. The south end holds the "wet labs" of the biological sciences, including the "next-step" field of proteomics (the study of the proteins of whole organisms) and chemistry. Again, the labs and work spaces are open and spacious.
On every floor in both sections is at least one comfortable gathering room for informal chats and more formal conferences, and numerous smaller places to sit and talk.
Scordilis noted such spaces every time he passed one, pointing out spots where several students and professors can scrawl equations, diagrams and ideas on ubiquitous "whiteboards" and chalkboards.
A serious researcher, he says collaboration - within the college, throughout the Five College consortium, and beyond - is crucial to good science, and the key to Ford Hall's future.
Further, he said, "Unless you're on top of research in your own field, you can't be a good teacher."
Good teaching is what Smith sciences are all about, he said. One-third of the college's 2,700 students major in the sciences or math, and for decades Smith has ranked high among colleges sending women on to science and math doctoral programs.
What went before
Before there was a Ford Hall, there was a zoning battle.
In September 2005, Joseph Krupczynski, then of West Street, characterized approval of the Ford Hall plans as "the municipal endorsement of the destruction of a neighborhood."
Interviewed Wednesday, Robert Wilson of Harrison Avenue recalled objections that arose in 2005 over a zoning overlay district that would have allowed Smith to build Ford Hall-size buildings and parking lots anywhere on campus, thus deeply affecting local neighborhoods.
He called it a plan "that gave Smith way too much in return for basically not much for the city."
"We objected also to the prepackaged deal," he said. He said there was "a lot of public discussion without most of the city government listening to what people on Elm Street and Green Street were saying."
Though eventually his own neighborhood was spared, "the other side is all the people who were displaced and a nice little neighborhood that's not a nice little neighborhood anymore," Wilson said.
How Ford Hall was built
The Ford in Ford Hall signifies the $10 million the Ford Motor Co. donated to the project. Ford has also donated millions in support of Smith's Picker Engineering Program and other science endeavors.
Other donors helping to build Ford Hall were mostly alumnae.
Designed by award-winning architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Seattle and San Francisco, the building was the work of William A. Berry & Son of Danvers; at Smith's behest, a number of western Massachusetts and local subcontractors were hired for the project.
Smith College dedicates Ford Hall, its new science and engineering building, Friday, Oct. 16, starting with a panel discussion at 4 p.m. Change ringing of the Mendenhall bells follows at 5:20, with a ceremony and ribbon cutting at 5:30, in the Ford Hall atrium, and a reception and open house with informal tours at 6:15. The event is open to the public. The Smith press release describes change ringing as dating back to the 17th century, and - appropriately for Ford Hall - involving mathematical and mechanical principles, and close collaboration among the ringers.
