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FARMINGTON – A slightly smaller crowd of University of Maine at Farmington officials, town planning board members and members of a design team toured a possible site for the Emery Community Arts Building Wednesday.
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Although walking over roughly the same ground as a similar field review conducted on July 30, far fewer objections and concerns were raised. This is because UMF, as it announced it would do at an Aug. 10 planning board meeting, directed DesignLAB Architects to redraw plans for the $5 million arts facility.
Specifically, the new plans call for the Emery building’s north side to not be positioned in front of the Alumni Theatre. Instead, the building has been shifted back from Academy Street, to be located entirely off of the west sides of the theatre and part of Dearborn Gym.
The change mostly negates concerns from a variety of sources over possible alterations to Alumni Theatre’s historic entryway facade, as well as residents who feared the building’s construction or presence would be detrimental to the Farmington Public Library. The Maine Historical Preservation Commission continues to express concerns about possible impacts to the front of Alumni’s elevation, but DesignLAB Architects’ Scott Slarsky said that planners were working through that issue.
The campus walkway, which runs alongside Dearborn and Alumni Theatre, would be maintained. Slarsky and UMF President Theo Kalikow said that which portions of the walkway would remain open air and which portions would be covered by a ceiling remained in flux, but that those details would be hammered out over the next few days. The height of the actual Emery building would be perfectly level with Alumni Theatre, while the height of the walkway roof, which connects the two buildings, would likely be a few feet lower.
Entrances to the arts center would be through the Alumni Theatre drop off loop, off of Academy Street, or through doors to the west and south of the facility. Slarsky noted that a large, sliding “barn door” would connect the multi-use performance space, designed to seat 100 people, with an outdoors auditorium in the campus green. That door could then be opened to facilitate events in either venue.
Board members raised some concerns, mostly over fire equipment access and the inevitable questions about parking. These issues will likely be discussed at the next planning board meeting.
UMF hopes to present a modified set of plans to the planning board at its next meeting on Sept. 14. Currently, architects and engineers are hoping to resolve issues with the theatre and gym’s various windows, entrances and architecture styles.
“The challenge with swinging it around and coming back further is making this work,” Slarsky said, gesturing to the complex set of doors and windows where Dearborn and Alumni merge. “But it’s a challenge we want to deal with.”
“Once you’ve designed it three times,” he joked, “it should be easy.”
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I’m so happy the Planning Board had a chance to review this sight again. But I still have major concerns about parking. I am also concerned about the new entrance. It looks like the entrance to a “big box” store. As creative as some architects are, this architectural firm on this project seems to have buried their creativity and covered it with what they deem suitable – glass. In his demonstration in his first attempt to ‘sell’ his design, architect Scott Slarsky used Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Mass., as an example of “new” blending with “old”. It has arches and bricks. Look at Merrill Hall. Its newest entrance has arches & glass. Alumni Theatre has an arch on its entrance. The excuse for ECAC…not enough money for bricks.
If the town of Farmington is going to endure a new building for the next 100 years, then we should have something decent to look at squished in between three other historic buildings. And while Maine Hist. Preservation is “okay” with the new design, I’m not.
Think about it this way… If UMF took $10,000 out of their technology budget – we all know technology has a shelf-life of about 5 years – and put that $10,000 toward bricks on an entrance – we also know bricks are ageless – we’d have a much better looking building and the $10,000 would be used for something that wouldn’t be “throw-away”.
I sure wish UMF’s administration would stop being so stubborn about getting its own way.
What’s with this brick business?? I would hope people 80 years from now get some panoramic view of architectural history and materials – not just another Georgian-columned museum or what my art history professor, in DC, used to refer to as “yet another brick structure in General Grant Gothic covered in ivy”. The architectural contrast of modern and earlier style has always given me particular visual pleasure; who doesn’t take a deep breath seeing in Boston the reflection of Trinity Church in that sky blue glass of the very modern Hancock Building?? I’m highly in favor of the new design of the EEAC.
Milton Kidd, Wilton
Woops! ECAB
Technology is not a throw away… Technology is an investment in the students of UMF. As an alumna who was a student in the VAPA department, and who helped develop the Music Technology lab I find your comments over critical, close minded, and toxic to the future generations of youth studying at UMF. How are students to type papers, record music and create digital media on BRICKS!?
Please, lets look beyond aesthetics to the purpose of this building, which UMF so needs and deserves.
Meg Dzyak
UMF BA ’08
McGill MA ’10