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by Allan Appel | Jan 22, 2010 4:47 pm

(10) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Higher Ed, East Rock

Yale returned to East Rock neighbors with revised plans for its $145 million new School of Management building.

The new plan calls for a smaller footprint placing the airport-like building farther away from residential neighbors.

Yale Assistant Vice-President Michael Morand outlined the changes to 20 members at the Lincoln-Bradley Association gathered Thursday evening at the Bradley Street home of Joseph Tagliarini. It was a private meeting closed to the public and the press.

Participants said afterwards that the changes were generally well received.

On Dec. 17, Yale received provisional approval from the City Plan Commission for its plans for a 246,000 square foot new SOM campus on Whitney Avenue.

That approval was accompanied by non-binding conditions. The commission urged Yale to address the conditions before the plans go before the Board of Aldermen’s legislative committee for a public hearing.

That aldermanic committee meeting is scheduled for Jan, 28. Thursday night’s gathering was intended to get neighbors on board to smooth the way for that public hearing

In a conversation Friday Morand characterized the meeting as “cordial and productive,” in keeping with years of engaging with the community. He said this was the eighth or ninth meeting with the Lincoln-Bradley Association, in addition to conversations with individual property owners.

While the building’s height and square footage do not change, an extra floor was created, so that the north-south length could be reduced, he said. That allows for greater setback and buffer between the Lawn Club on the north and the Bradley Street homes and offices on the south.

Here are the changes that Morand outlined:

First: the setback on the north side will be widened, as requested by City Plan. The minimum width will be nine feet and, because the line is diagonal, wider at some points. The result will be more space for landscaping and a pedestrian and bicycle passage on the pathway from Pearl Street to Whitney between the new SOM building and the Lawn Club.

Second: “Thanks to the hard work of our design team, the south side yard setback is now from 38 feet to 63 feet to the SOM property line, allowing more space for landscaping and buffering,” Morand reported.

Two other concerns highlighted at the City Plan meeting, the raising of the full $145 million and the prompt beginning of construction within three months of demolition, were not discussed at the meeting. Thus far SOM has announced receiving only one gift of $8 million towards the new building.

“We’re confident the fundraising campaign will finish successfully,” Morand said.

As to the demoliton/construction schedule, he added: “We share with our neighbors throughout town that the site should not be left vacant for enormous amounts of time; that’s a question of working out details.”

East Rock Alderman Roland Lemar attended Thursday night’s meeting. He chairs the aldermanic Legislation Committee, before which the conversation continues on Jan. 28.

In a conversation after Thursday’s gathering, he concurred with Morand that Yale has reached out out to neighbors. And he described a generally amiable atmosphere at the meeting. Yet he cautioned, “I’m not sure everyone is entirely happy or that we solved all the problems.”

Allan Appel Photo One neighbor who left the meeting feeling not entirely sanguine was Sal Amadeo (pictured). For 15 years he has operated a guest house and urban spa called Amadeus’s Center for Health and Healing at 245 Bradley.

He was not alone in not caring for the aesthetics or mass of the proposed SOM building designed by Norman Foster. But he was resigned to it. “You can’t fight Yale,” he said.

He said he worries about the prospect of loud blasting and drilling that might shake the plaster from his walls or the needles out of the skin of his acupuncture clients.

“People come here to get away from the world. This all depends on quiet. It [the construction] could ruin my business,” he said as he lifted a drape near a window that looks out on the cheek-by-jowl future construction site.

He said that Morand reassured him that Yale would monitor noise levels and that further meetings would be held on those matters after January 28.

Full of praise for what she heard was a teacher who attended the meeting but preferred not to be identified. She described Yale’s revisions as “a vast improvement. They added a lot more buffer space north and south without losing square footage, by utilizing attic space.”

Concerned as Amadeo was about noise and traffic, she added, “Everyone really wants it to get started, so it gets over.”

A new neighbor, Peggy Atherton, said, “I don’t want to argue with Yale. I think they do a good job.”

Had the new revisions to the plan been substantial, Yale would have had to return to the City Plan Commission for approval. Since they were not, Lemar said, the proposal goes straight to his committee.

However, he said some people would like see further accomodations, like more scaling back, buffering, and perhaps softening some architectural detail.
Lemar said he urged Morand to have the modified submission given in detail to the committee and public

“This is a beautiful, wonderful, residential street. I think the public hearing will help delineate a lot of the concerns that should be taken seriously before approving,” Lemar said.

Reached by phone on friday, Jane Jarvis, president of the Lincoln-Bradley Association, said the group does not have an official stance. “Basically the Lincoln-Bradley Association has not taken a position for or against, because it’s clear people are going to be for or against based on where they live,” she said.

“The meeting was civil, informative, people got their questions answered, and they were either happy or unhappy with the answers,” Jarvis said.

The plans have already been modified several times, and they could yet be changed again, Jarvis said. The Legislation Committee will hear the plans soon, and it may have still more changes to suggest, she said. “So we’re not at the end of the road, although I think the project will go forward, but perhaps with other modifications.”

Comments

posted by: Dominik on January 22, 2010 8:11pm

Thank You Yale. Another eyesore in New Haven.

posted by: robn on January 23, 2010 1:55pm

I think that its pretty great that Yale sat down with the neighborhood and made serious revisions to the building. Lopping off two chunks of the building to give neighbors more breathing room and finding a place for that bulk inside of the building is a lot of work. They could have just blown the neighbors off and rammed it through.

I have one major architectural critique though..I hope the designers and clients are reading.

The predominant model for bulky buildings on Whitney Avenue and in East Rock is the horseshoe courtyard building, not the closed cloister. The horseshoe diagram is a great way to lessen the bulk of the building and preserve the feeling of open space. Conversely, the closed cloister is formally heavy and does not create a civic sense of open space.

The bulk Yale architecture includes closed off cloisters with resoundingly clear barriers such as gates and even moats. This is not just an affectation of gothic revival but a representation of a less friendly Yale tradition; that being separatism. I believe that the university has been making great strides in the transition from an elite-separatist institution into an elite-inclusive institution.

East Rock is about horseshoes, not cloisters. Designing the new SOM as a closed cloister (whether or not the front wall is made of glass) is not a progressive step.

posted by: Tanner on January 23, 2010 2:39pm

Thank you East Rock the Poster child for New Haven NIMBY. I’m sure the neighborhood will help Yale in the end will have neither form nor function I hope Mr Foster has some Howard Roark in him tells them to get out of his office immediatly.

posted by: East Rockette on January 23, 2010 5:40pm

Excellent point, Rob, about the welcoming horseshoe shape vs the forbidding enclosed courtyard. On that note, I also have to ask whether, given the prevailing westerly and southerly winds in New Haven, that frontage will offer anything in the way of shelter, whether to people who use the building, or to passersby in need of temporary respite from the weather?

Glad to hear that the access through to Pearl St will be preserved. It’s a well-worn walking-and-biking groove that’s only gotten deeper since the advent of Cafe Romeo. Will there also be pedestrian access via the other side of the building, through the promised greenspace?

posted by: robn on January 23, 2010 7:03pm

TANNER,

East Rock is generally a great place to live because the people that live there worked hard together to make it that way…your bad grammar and Ayn Rand be damned.

posted by: anon on January 23, 2010 9:13pm

The facade and scale of this building are huge and completely out of proportion to the street, neighborhood, and purpose of the building. It reminds one of Lincoln Center which of course is a project worthy of a grand facade and entrance and has the fountains, courtyard and viewing lines to establish it as a worthy and appropriate building to house grand opera and the oversized voices and personalities which inhabit it.

The Met
http://nancyholzner.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/lincoln-center-from-room.jpg

The SOM
http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/yaleSOMstreet550x.jpg

The pomposity, the hubris, and the $$$$$$$$ (did I get the eight dollar signs right?) are perfectly captured by this atrocious and bombastic turd of a building which will grace the small-towny, humble and otherwise insignificant, if lovely, tree lined avenue which some of us call home. What great works of the mind, commerce, or industry has SOM hatched that this building is attempting to mirror in its Viagra like swollen edifice?!?!?!

Charles Dickens who famously if wrongly called Hillhouse the most beautiful avenue in America would surely be rolling in his grave if he were alive today and saw this.

...

posted by: Neighbor on January 24, 2010 1:16am

I’m glad that yale is working with the neighbors, and am happy about the new business school. But is there any chance they will reconsider the design? While taste is subjective it seems a lot of people are disappointed by the building’s proposed appearance (in addition to the size/proximity to neighbors). I haven’t heard too many people say they think it looks great.

posted by: Jay on January 24, 2010 11:22am

As long as no one walks, parks or breathes on Everit Street, everything is fine.

posted by: East Rockette on January 24, 2010 2:17pm

Norman Foster has done beautiful work, some of it madly avant-garde, and some of it spectacular reinterpretations of traditional spaces. He’s also done a kind of dorky business school revamp which, in my opinion, doesn’t merit his good name but maybe got him this gig.

I’m all for dramatic, innovative architecture but this building is both annoying and just sort of… “meh.” I look at it and I think “Is Lord Foster of Thames Bank ‘aving a larf?” especially since it seems to betray his commitment to humanistic, green design.

It’s not just that it looks and feels like an airport or a hospital, rather than a school or a college. The clinical palette is chilly and impersonal (whence the airport/hospital/just passing through/mop up after yourselves vibe), and those toothpicky columns along the front (as previously noted in discussions) are flimsy-looking and alien in scale. It’s not so different from some of the more gimmicky NHPS school redesigns. But they’re singular, rather than part of a campus or an established area of large buildings.

Whereas what definitively makes this building unbeautiful is its relationship (or lack thereof) with its surroundings. The design really doesn’t speak to any of its neighbours, except to say “bugger off” or maybe “Check me out. I’m so totally 2010, yeah baby!” Which is going to be a bit sad when it’s no longer 2010. It’ll look like a giant pair of acid-washed ankle-zip jeans bestriding Whitney Ave.

Arguably the Yale Whale doesn’t speak to its neighbours either (except via colour) but its Viking curve lifts my heart every time I see it, and it occupies its space beautifully. It’s friendly.

Oh for a design that either generously reimagines tradition, or is utterly eye-popping. Anything but this bland, middle-ground science-park corporate HQ airport hospital thingy! I also suspect the SoM would be able to meet its fund-raising goals faster with a friendlier or more thrilling design. Then everybody would be happy…

(BTW anon, if it’s Viagra-swollen edifices you’re after, you can’t go past Foster’s gorgeous Gherkin. Now that‘s a building that knows what it stands for).

posted by: Kumbaya on January 26, 2010 9:45pm

ANON—this things is shaped like a donut, a building constructed round a courtyard. If you want an anatomical metaphor, you are probably looking in ENTIRELY the wrong place with “viagra swollen”...

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