A New/Renovated Kingsbury Building will soon be a Reality

by Richard Messner

Remember Kingsbury Hall? I am sure that most all of you do considering that many of you spent much of your days here at UNH in this building. Depending upon the years you attended UNH, you will undoubtedly have viewed Kingsbury Hall in different ways. Some of you may have seen Kingsbury in the early days of its service when it was a new (or fairly new) building, bristling with vibrant activity. Others may have seen Kingsbury Hall in its current state, a worn building that has had so many modifications to its internal structure that its usefulness as an engineering building is at an end.

The move for a new or renovated Kingsbury Hall has been in the making for many years. Due to the engineering accreditation organization's (ABET) concern about the condition of the teaching facilities of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences (CEPS), the state and UNH has taken this project into high gear. This past year UNH was given a modest sum of money and the green light for a study surrounding what would be the funding requirements for a new "state-of-the-art" Kingsbury Hall that would meet CEPS growth projections.

One of the first things to be resolved was the idea of a "new" building or a "renovated" building. Toward this end UNH interviewed and then hired a study team. The architect chosen for this study was Rothman Partners, Inc. of Boston, MA. Educational programming consultants Paulien & Associates, Inc. of Denver, CO were also on the team. Together they would (with much faculty and administrative input) launch the process for providing a detailed program for the renovation and potential additions to Kingsbury Hall. Roy Torbert (the Dean of CEPS at that time) put together a committee of faculty members who would provide the conduit for information to/from departments in CEPS to the architect and consultants.

The process began with the need to provide a Master Plan for future facilities development for the entire College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. The end result was a report issued in March of 2001 by the consultant team. The report was used by the UNH administration, trustees, and the incoming new Dean of CEPS, Arthur Greenburg, to persuade the State of New Hampshire to appropriate monies for the Kingsbury project. This year has seen the allocation of 44 million dollars for the project. The architect firm of Rothman Partners was selected to continue and start the process toward breaking ground on a fairly ambitious schedule. At the time of this writing, committee members are providing departmental input to a consultant firm hired by Rothman Partners which specializes in engineering laboratory space requirements. The committee is working hard this summer to help iron out details to make sure that schematic designs generated by the architects accurately reflect the needs of all departments and also fit the budgetary constraints. CEPS consists of nine departments plus an extensive satellite library. As you can imagine, making this process work in a cohesive manner is a daunting task. Having so many different departments, some of which have vastly different needs, makes this an exciting as well as challenging committee assignment. If all goes well groundbreaking will happen in May of 2003.