Representatives of Sasaki & Associates Inc., an architectural design firm based in San Francisco, arrived on Pitzer College and Harvey Mudd College campuses last week to identify their goals and issues concerning upcoming campus renovations and to obtain student, staff and faculty input on the project. The Sasaki architects are updating their 1989 Master Plan for Harvey Mudd College, which outlines architectural design changes in the Harvey Mudd campus for the next ten years. They are also assisting Pitzer College with its master architectural plan.

Joseph Koch HMC and Pitzer are rethinking their architectural master plans for the first time in more than ten years

The Harvey Mudd Master Plan Update web page states that: "Students expressed the need for time away from the intensity of the academic program." The project participants plan to construct common interior and exterior spaces for social interaction in order to help breach the segregation people described between students, faculty and staff. Also, because the architects and committee found complaints of the "austere" campus environment, they want to "soften the hard edges" of the campus.

The Master Plan Update’s general goals include enhancing the interaction between Harvey Mudd and the other Claremont Colleges, maximizing the usage of existing and new facilities, and developing Dartmouth Street as the "public face" for the college.

According to Christopher Moore PI ’03, a Student Representative of Harvey Mudd’s Master Planning Committee, the Sasaki architects have tentative goals but nothing is "official." Their current, more specific plans include renovating Thomas Garrett Hall, Foothill Apartments, Platt Campus Center, the dining hall, as well as moving the swimming pool and building new educational and administrative buildings.

Moore said that although the committee and architects are currently debating whether to improve the current dining hall or to build a new one, they are leaning towards building a new dining hall.

"The cost of the renovation of the dining hall was calculated as more than the cost of replacement," Moore said.

The problem with building a new dining hall, according to Moore, is that Aramark will have to serve food to the students and faculty in tents while replacing the building.

The primary problem the committee has had to face in the Master Plans Update is preservation of space on campus. "Adding buildings means less parking spaces," Moore said.

According to Pitzer Assistant Professor of Art Kathryn Miller, the renovations at Pitzer College will probably consist of new dorms and a new public center which students, staff and faculty can use together. She said that the renovations really depend upon what the Sasaki engineers "decide about the age of building and the cost of restoring them."

The architects are presently back in San Francisco drawing up designs and will return in April, although no date for project commencement has been set.