University of Virginia Library

Visitors Ask Architectural Firm
To Design Student Dining Facility

By RICHARD JONES

After Completion The Facility Will Accommodate Approximately 560 Students

The architectural firm of Williams and
Tazewell of Norfolk will be asked by the
Board of Visitors to design a dining
facility to be built adjacent to the
Alderman Road-Observatory Hill
dormitories.

The facility included in the 1965
Master Site Plan would provide seating
for approximately 560 students. It would
be financed through the sale of revenue
bonds already authorized by the General
Assembly.

The location for the 27,000 square
foot building will be at the southwest
corner of Alderman and McCormick
Roads.

Another planning firm of Boston had
suggested a site plan proposal for the
Lambeth Field tract which would
combine two, three, and four story
housing units for students.

Housing Recommendations

The recommendations prepared by
Sasaki, Dawson and DeMay Associates
call for developing student apartments in
an arrangement of housing quadrangles
focusing on a "village square" with
adjacent open space for recreational and
buffer zones along the periphery of the
tract.

Size and shape of the housing units
would be determined through
architectural planning. The Sasaki plan
has been reviewed with the Charlottesville
planning office.

Other recommendations for the
16-acre tract on Emmet Street include
preservation of the existing amphitheater
and colonnade and that the existing
play fields remain open for recreational
use.

According to the Sasaki report, "The
colonnade should be incorporated into
the development plans as an upper level
pedestrian walkway."

The report also suggested that the
plantings along the Chesapeake & Ohio
Railway should be preserved and new
plantings added to decrease visibility and
noise of the trains.

Other recommendations are that the
vehicular route to the site should be from
Emmet Street at the Massie Road
intersection and that a pedestrian access
to the central Grounds should be by way
of Rugby Road and University way.

Commenting on the use of
walk-up/mid-rise combination of housing
units, the report noted that "the building
land use area shapes a large open green,
which, when coupled with the athletics
area, forms a significant open setting for
both the housing complex and the
amphitheater."

The Sasaki firm is being retained by
the University as architects for the
housing units, along with Rawlings,
Wilson, and Fraher of Richmond.