Spring Break
Planners raise energy concerns
Tom Brant, news editor
Issue date: 4/11/07 Section: News
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"We're trying to look into our crystal ball and predict what Middlebury will need in 50 years," said Susan Personette, associate vice president for Facilities.
The plan, whose chief architect is Boston firm Michael Dennis & Associates, outlines seven areas in which the campus needs to be improved, including everything from academic space planning to landscape design. According to Michael Dennis, landscape design and improving the aesthetics and functionality of the campus grounds are the first priorities.
"It's not the buildings that make the campus, it's the open spaces," he told the audience of about 75 people, almost none of whom were students.
The worst of the problems with landscaping come from the College's vast expanses of grass, which account for more than 100 acres of the 225-acre main campus, said Jose Almiñana, of Philadelphia-based Andropogon Associates, another firm working on the Master Plan. After collecting data on where campus activities take place, Almiñana's team found that the vast majority use either Battell Beach or the main quad between McCullough Student Center and Voter Hall, two of the grass-covered areas with the worst drainage on campus.
Besides the drainage problems, maintaining such a large area of pure grass is expensive and harmful to the environment, Almiñana said.
He proposed changing some 12 acres of lawn, mostly around McCardell Bicentennial Hall and Old Chapel Road, into wetlands and rain gardens, which are more suited to their location.
"Battell Beach and the main quad would remain lawns, but other areas, including the area behind BiHall, would be changed into meadows or wetland," he said.
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David Haglund
posted 4/17/07 @ 6:15 PM EST
The world's oil supply will never "run out." As it gets more scarce it will get more expensive, such that alternative energies will become relatively cheaper. (Continued…)
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