Hamden, CT - Water Treatment Plant

[lofter1]

Connecticut Town Helps Create an Architectural Anomaly:
An Appealing Water Plant

By STACEY STOWE
December 4, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/ny.../04hamden.html


HAMDEN, Conn. - It could have been a pitched battle: a snug, Bohemian neighborhood versus a big construction project in a historic enclave. But instead of saying not in my backyard, some of the architects, artists and teachers who live here collaborated with a utility company to make a workaday water treatment plant architecturally dazzling.

The $60 million plant, dedicated in September, is a sleek, tubular building clad in shiny metal panels. In a wink to its purpose, it is shaped like an inverted water droplet. Flanked by a suburban neighborhood and framed by two parks and a lake, its high-design is at once strikingly dissimilar to its bucolic surroundings and at ease in the landscape.

Thomas McDonald for The New York Times

Ninety percent of the newly dedicated $60 million water treatment plant in
Hamden, Conn., is underground.

"It's a simple expression of stainless steel," said the architect, Steven Holl, during a speech last month at Columbia University, where he is a professor in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. "A sliver in the landscape is all that's shown."

For Mr. Holl, whose work includes the Chapel of St. Ignatius in Seattle and the Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art, "every act of building is an urbanist act." That, too, was the philosophy behind engaging the community in the creation of Whitney Waterworks.

The collaboration between the neighbors of Edgerton Park and the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority began eight years ago when the utility decided to replace its long-dormant 1906-era plant to purify water from nearby Lake Whitney and increase its reserve. The authority provides 55 million gallons of water a day to 12 towns. But first the neighbors, who were used to walking the 14-acre grounds of the plant with their children and dogs, had to be won over.

One thousand notices were mailed to residents, and design, construction and environmental committees were formed. Residents were worried about the project's affect on real estate values, the ecosystem of East Rock Park, and the character of their neighborhood, a close-knit community that sits a few miles from downtown New Haven between East Rock and Edgerton parks.

Here, rambling Tudor and Colonial homes are juxtaposed with cottages and occupant-designed modern houses. It is a neighborhood that is home to many professionals, some of whom are affiliated with Yale University.

Significant architectural design comes with the territory; nearby New Haven boasts buildings by architects like Louis Kahn, Paul Rudolph, and Eero Saarinen.

Jan Cunningham, an abstract artist and a former president of the North Edgehill Association, praised the water authority but recalled its early hesitancy.

"I think they had a nondescript building in mind," she said. "I don't think they were banking on the level of involvement. They ended up stepping outside their comfort zone."

Technically, the water authority did not need to ask for the neighborhood's advice, so why did it?

"We wanted to demonstrate that you can implement important infrastructure projects on a regional basis without trampling on the needs of the neighborhood," said David Silverstone, president and chief executive officer of the water authority.

Initial discussions centered less on good design than "how can we make it less bad?" remembered William Brown, a member of the design committee and director of the Eli Whitney Museum across the street from the plant. There was even talk about disguising the plant, perhaps within a Georgian-style house.

Another committee member, Carl Gottschalk, an architect and 23-year neighborhood resident, said: "At some point we decided, let's try for excellence. There's been a plant there for 100 years that's been a wonderful feature of the landscape. We asked, can we recreate something that will be there another 100 years?"

A list of 25 architects was later winnowed to 5, said Gene Festa, a committee member and architect who worked for both Eero Saarinen and Kevin Roche. Selecting Mr. Holl took all day, several votes, and persuasion by Ms. Cunningham and Mr. Festa.

"It was an opportunity to make a statement about infrastructure that could simply not be a blot on the landscape but contribute to it," Mr. Festa said.

The plant was designed as a model of "sustainable" architecture, an eco-friendly mode of design. A series of ponds cleanse storm water outside, just as the plant cleanses water. Ninety percent of the plant is underground.

On paper, the steel clad facade of the building reads hard and cold but an on-site visit yields a different impression. The building's skin looks as pliable as pie tin. Its steel exterior is flecked with tiny windows. Judging from the interior photographs of the building in Architecture Magazine, light penetrates the clean, metal space. The sliver of steel is flanked by two concrete buildings that are partially concealed by a fence, one that will disappear behind a screen of Virginia creeper. The small ponds, wavy grasses, gravel paths and tree-dotted hillside were designed by landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh. Almost all of the old building was recycled, including an eight-foot section of concrete pipe that is laid out front like a piece of industrial jewelry.

Mr. Brown, director of the museum, said that in considering such sophisticated aesthetics for a utilitarian building, the community and the water authority took a leap.

"An awful lot of people's courage was tested with this project," he said.


Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

[ryan]

I never saw this building with the skin on (it's, um, snazzy) but when I saw them putting together the frame it seemed like quite the monstrosity seeing as it's surrounded by time capsule new england...