University will organize campus into academic ‘neighborhoods’

New chemistry building to replace armory on Washington Road.

By: David Campbell
   Princeton University is undertaking a campuswide planning initiative over the next decade to create academic "neighborhoods," in which related disciplines are grouped in proximity to one another on campus.
   One of the major projects under that plan is to build a new chemistry building at the site of the armory on Washington Road, moving the department south from its current location in Frick Laboratory closer to facilities for physics, molecular biology, genomics and other science departments. The proposed new building is in the early planning stages, the university said.
   University President Shirley M. Tilghman discussed the new neighborhoods initiative Monday at a meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community, according to a release issued by the university. She said the initiative will stress pedestrian access and preservation of green spaces.
   "We do not want to become a campus where people are in cars or the only way to get around is on a shuttle bus," Dr. Tilghman said. "We want to preserve the park-like character of the campus. In all of the projects that we’re talking about over the next 10 years, we will not be absorbing more green space."
   In addition to the new chemistry building, Dr. Tilghman cited four other major projects in the coming years. They are a pedestrian bridge over Washington Road, renovation of Frick Laboratory, renovations and additions at the School of Engineering and Applied Science and renovations to the residential colleges.
   Frick, located at Washington Road and William Street, was built in the late 1920s and no longer can accommodate the chemistry department’s needs. The new chemistry building is estimated to take at least five years to complete. Options for where to house the current occupants of the armory — the university’s Federal Credit Union and the Army ROTC — have yet to be determined, the university said.
   The new chemistry building would be part of a new science compound that would encompass Fine, McDonnell, Jadwin, Peyton, Lewis Thomas, Schultz, Eno, Moffett and Guyot halls as well as the Icahn Laboratory, which houses the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, and the Frank Gehry-designed Peter B. Lewis science library, which is under construction and scheduled to be finished in 2007, the university said.
   To bring the buildings together, the university plans to build a pedestrian bridge over Washington Road. The bridge is being designed by Swiss bridge designer Christian Menn. It would span Washington Road from Icahn Lab to Jadwin Hall and the future chemistry building, the university said. Dr. Tilghman described the bridge as a "gateway" to the campus and downtown Princeton.
   The science compound is one of four academic "neighborhoods" on campus. The others revolve around engineering and applied sciences, the social sciences and the humanities, according to the university.
   As part of the chemistry department’s planned move, space freed up in Frick could be used for some social science and humanities departments that are now crowded into buildings like Dickinson Hall. Frick is in close proximity to buildings housing the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the departments of politics, economics and sociology, the university said.
   Most of the humanities "neighborhood" would remain centered in the area of East Pyne, Chancellor Green, the Joseph Henry and Scheide Caldwell houses, McCosh, Dickinson, 1879, Marx, McCormick and Woolworth, the university said.
   Farther east on campus, the School of Engineering and Applied Science has proposed renovations to the existing Engineering Quadrangle and additions in its immediate vicinity as part of a strategic planning initiative undertaken by Dean Maria Klawe, according to the university.
   Dr. Tilghman also cited plans to continue renovations in Princeton’s residential colleges.
   The university is changing its alignment from five two-year colleges into a system of paired two- and four-year colleges to create more interaction for first- and second-year students with upper-class students, graduate students and faculty. This fall, it also will undertake its recently announced plan to more gradually phase in a roughly 11 percent increase in the undergraduate student body.
   Whitman College, to be the Ivy League school’s sixth residential college, is under construction on campus between Baker Rink and Dillon Gymnasium. Dillon also is being looked at for possible renovation and expansion. Whitman is scheduled to be completed by the fall of 2007.
   The university is reconfiguring two other colleges — Butler and Mathey — to implement a system of three four-year residential colleges and three two-year residential colleges. That work is still in the planning stages.
   Also at Monday’s meeting, Provost Christopher Eisgruber said the university plans to install wireless technology in the undergraduate dorms, the graduate college and its annexes this summer.