features of the existing landscape . Key proposals included removal of cars from the lowland areas , the wet meadows , and the edges of byways and historic greens , with the intention of accommodating them in a central parking facility ; reinforcing the placement of new buildings on hills ; proactively replanting the mature tree canopy ; reintroducing damaged or destroyed meadow ecologies ; pruning trees to restore view corridors ; restoring courtyards ; making the campus more accessible ; re-evaluating maintenance procedures ; and , most critically , confronting environmental challenges such as contamination and stormwater quality and control .
By far the most ambitious landscape project to come out of the 1998 plan was the re-naturalization of a 13-acre valley that had been lost to service roads , industrial shops , an expanded power plant , and a large parking lot , much of it added after World War II . This corridor , renamed Alumnae Valley , would join Munger Meadow , the Middle / Lower Meadows , and Severance Green as the organizing landscape backbone of the campus .
Photo | MVVA , Inc .
Completing the Valley System
The site that pre-dated Alumnae Valley was filled with conflicting uses and assets . On one hand , it was unquestionably the back of house for the campus , where the Power Plant loomed ( the biggest windowless building on campus ) and service roads joined to work
Photo | MVVA , Inc .
shops with efficiency in mind . The large asphalt parking lot stretched nearly the entire length of the valley , its only virtue being its capacity to hold 300 cars . But this unrealized valley was also a prime site with 75-feet of frontage on Lake Waban , in close proximity to the historic Alumnae Hall and its Hay Outdoor Theater ( both aligned with the lake corridor ), encircled by a thick forest , and tennis courts for recreation .
Building the 2003 Wang Campus Center ( designed by Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam Architects ) on a site identified in the 1998 plan and overlooking Alumnae Valley , put the landscape restoration in motion . However , it was not an extension of the Campus Center , even as it complemented it , but instead a new landscape center of the campus in its own right . Creating the conditions for the Valley to serve this function required bold but sensible changes : move parking to a new garage across from the Campus Center , reestablish connections to Severance Green and surrounding buildings , give primacy to the pedestrian , minimize the impact of service needs , and provide a field for recreation . MVVA and the College agreed that Alumnae Valley would differ from other valleys on campus : it would be of its time , a landscape that draws on environmental principles for stormwater , native plants , maintenance , and low-impact social uses such as impromptu recreation , trails , and outdoor classrooms .
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