With campus renovations planned into the next decade and scaffolding competing with ivy for space on Yale’s walls, construction around campus might seem mundane.
But for some members of the Yale community, a change of scenery can make a big difference.
“It’s sort of like going from night to day for many of my colleagues,” Tim White, a collections manager at the Peabody Museum, said of the Class of ’54 Environmental Science Center. He noted the change from windowless rooms in the Kline Geology Lab basement to the new building. Dedicated in October, the center has replica dinosaur skeletons suspended from its high ceilings.
The Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Geology and Geophysics, and Anthropology departments as well as faculty from the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies have moved to the building. The Peabody Museum and the Kline Geology Laboratory connect to the new building through passageways and the Peabody has moved some of its collections into the Environmental Science Center.
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology student Brian Moore GRD ’06 said he thinks the center fulfills its mission of connecting the departments located there.
“I think the layout is really conducive to interaction, not only between E&EB and the Peabody people but also between the Geology Department and those two,” he said.
More recently, the office of the provost moved into the newly renovated 1 Hillhouse Ave.
Facilities Project Director Arch Currie said the 1 Hillhouse renovations were still in progress a week before the provost’s move.
“It’s coming down to the wire,” he said on May 1. But he stressed that because the renovations were so nearly finished, some of the furniture had already been installed.
The Center for Language Studies joins the provost in 1 Hillhouse Ave.
“I think they’re doing a nice job with the renovations,” Center for Language Studies Administrative Manager Mimi Bloch said .
Timothy Dwight renovations are scheduled to be completed just before students move in this coming fall. TD students, who lived in Swing Space this year while their college was being renovated, look forward to a better opportunity for interaction.
Sarah Pease ’05 said she will be happy to move into her college in the fall.
“The [lack of a] dining hall has been stifling the community because we haven’t had a place to congregate,” she said. “It’s weird because I feel like I’m going to be a freshman again and not know my way around.”
Currie said he felt a “cautious optimism” about the project, scheduled to be completed by the third week of August.
“Our contractor feels confident that he’s ahead of schedule,” he said.
Currie said most of the remaining work was on the college’s public areas, not on student rooms.
“In some cases, the student rooms are done,” he said. “If we wanted to, we could probably put locks on the doors.”
Renovations at the School of Medicine, some of which should be completed this summer, are also going smoothly.
“All projects are on schedule,” said George Zdru, director of planning at the School of Medicine.
Work on an extension building to attach to the B-wing of the School of Medicine is progressing according to schedule, Zdru said. He said the addition will house pharmacology facilities and should be available for occupancy mid-summer.
Construction of a new research building on Congress Avenue will continue into the fall. Zdru said the Medical School has not yet decided which research departments will use the building.