Music Building, Library Commons Among Campus Renovation Plans
The Academy is in the process of planning and implementing a series of renovations across campus. Exeter’s performing arts initiative will grant the theater and dance programs a new building and the Forrestal-Bowld Music Center a renovation. Exeter is also updating the fitness center, constructing a new full-turf field and a cycling room, in addition to converting the library’s ground floor to the “library commons.”
The library commons will provide students with a relaxed space to study or work with friends while enjoying a snack or drink. The space will include a new Harkness classroom and the Academy is still reviewing its cafe options to provide beverages and snacks.
The library’s renovation, however, has faced difficulties. The Academy took longer than expected to select the light fixtures for the space and develop the best wood treatment for the millwork. Additionally, the upholstered furniture in the basement of the library is still under construction. Despite these delays, the Academy still expects the library commons to open to students at the start of the spring term.
To counteract the growing needs and interests of Exeter athletics, the Academy is constructing a new fitness center in the Thompson Gym’s basement. The renovations will resolve the current fitness room’s spatial and safety problems.
“It’s going to be nice and big. [It] looks great. The ceiling’s nice and high, so it’s going to be a great, great space.”
Construction began in Dec. 2014 and the basement of Thompson Gym has already been demolished. The construction company is currently pouring cement and working on the flooring. The whole process is running smoothly, and the Academy has finalized their decisions on the colors of the flooring, the padding and the walls.
According to Director of Athletics Robert Morris, the Academy is in a “wait-mode,” with construction on schedule for the fitness center’s projected opening at the start of the 2015-2016 school year.
Morris toured the construction site last week and was impressed by the progress and the design of the space. “It’s going to be nice and big. [It] looks great. The ceiling’s nice and high, so it’s going to be a great, great space,” he said.
Physical education instructor and science instructor Sasha Alcott is looking forward to the new fitness center because of the safer space and increased equipment it will provide for her students. She hopes that, with the new athletic area, she will be able to expose her students to different kinds of activities, including more dumbbell, turf, abdominal and stretching exercises.
“I’m really excited about the new fitness center because although we’ve been able to do a good job with what we have, I’m really looking forward to more space for movement and less chance for people slipping,” Alcott said. “In particular, we work out a lot in the hallways and stairwells, which is fine and the exercises we do are really great, but the floors are really slippery. I’m all for it. I’m really excited.”
To make room for the new fitness center, the cycling room will move across the hallway in the basement into what used to be a storage area. Construction on the new cycling room is almost finished and will be completed by the end of the term for the cycling team’s training period. It will be a much more modern space—a television and storage for the bikes will be added.
This summer, the Athletics Department will also install a synthetic turf field. It will be located behind Phelps Stadium and and span approximately 255 feet by 420 feet.
Phelps Stadium is currently being used by field hockey, football and boys’ and girls’ lacrosse. According to Morris, however, the existing turf field is much more conducive to football and lacrosse than it is to field hockey.
“For all of these years, field hockey has been compromised by playing on a surface that, although better than grass, is not exactly what field hockey is best played upon,” Morris said. “So with our new turf field, we’re going to give field hockey the best type of field that we can.”
This turf will serve as field hockey’s home. It will also be available to the soccer teams during inclement weather, and in the spring, the girls’ lacrosse team. Furthermore, with the additional field, the Athletics Department will have increased space and flexibility for tryouts and games as the schedule has gotten over-packed when several teams need to practice and play on the same field.
The new synthetic turf field will also drain water efficiently and will enable teams to continue to play despite rain, thereby decreasing the number of game cancellations and reschedulings.
Similar reasoning lies behind the planned renovations of the Forrestal-Bowld Music Center, which the Trustees and Department of Institutional Advancement have recently completed funding. The current building, which was built in 1995, has served as a high-quality space for music, but over the past few decades the program has simply outgrown its facilities.
“We have far more ensembles. We have a higher degree of participation from students and the result from that has been an incredible space-crunch,” music instructor Rohan Smith said. “Our space is being used for all sorts of different purposes that are constantly in conflict with each other. It has also resulted in us having to use the church much more than we would like to because it invades the church’s time and space and conflicts somewhat with the church’s admission.”
“These rooms are constantly being turned over and used for all sorts of different things. It’s incredibly cumbersome and makes our custodian work much harder than they should,” Smith continued.
The main addition to the Forrestal-Bowld Music Center will be a 4,000 square foot recital and rehearsal studio, to be used primarily by the Academy’s symphony orchestra. The recital hall will have an audience capacity of approximately 250 people during ensemble performances, and it may seat up to a 100 more during solo recitals.
A recording line will feed audio directly from the recital hall to an adjacent mixing room. The room will function as a recording studio, with monitors and technology where students can master and perform post-production on a high level recording system.
Four new teaching studios will be built, two of which will be slightly larger and suitable for ensembles. Furthermore, for the first time, the music building will be introduced to a classroom specifically made for the teaching of musicianship skills and music theory.
“We’re going to have a beautiful spacious room with lots of open space and boards and a piano just for teaching music theory, ear training [and] vocal skills,” Smith said. “It will also be used for many rehearsals as well for groups of the right size.”
Construction will also add a Harkness classroom, another idea new to the music building. It will function as an academic classroom, with opportunities to learn about music appreciation as well as different eras of music history.
In addition, the current music library will be upgraded to a media and technology center and divided into two parts. A technology studio will serve as either a teaching space or a resource, and another room will be available where teachers can work with students to create music on digital sources.
The renovations do not yet have a set start date, but the Academy estimates that they will begin right after spring break. The Academy hopes to open the expansion in the fall of 2016.
“It’s incredibly exciting,” Smith said. “I think it is really going to transform our program, yet again.”
Relating to another aspect of the Academy’s rapidly growing arts initiative, the construction of a new performing arts center has been at the top of Principal Tom Hassan and the Trustees’ list. Completion of fundraising for the theater and dance building is currently at 82 percent.
The design process is still in its early stages, but architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien have visited campus to begin laying out plans. During their stay, Williams and Tsien interacted with faculty in hopes of immersing themselves in the Exeter culture. The two will be hosting interactive sessions to engage the community in the project’s creative planning so they can design a building that perfectly suits the unique community of Exeter.
Construction is anticipated to start in 2016, and the new center is planned to open the following year.
Contributions from Anastasia Kurochkina
Even without designs, DRAMAT board member lower Alejandro Arango is excited for the new performing arts center. “I remain positive and optimistic that it will be a change for the better,” he said. “I may not see the actual center until my senior year, yet I'm sure it will be an incredible gain for the Theater Department. DRAMAT accepts the new center with open arms.”