Mt. Ida College in Newton’s new residential hall.

Design is more than process as architects and their clients know. It is delivery: selection, organization, construction, occupancy, moving people into a new building that only months ago was just an idea.

Ability to deliver is what separates designers whose buildings we walk among from those whose good ideas we are only able to talk about. Now, though time-and-money pressures on architects to deliver extraordinary design in the new century have never been greater, tools are being rediscovered to meet certain of those pressures. “Design-build” is one of those tools.

In the nineteenth century, when the professional practice of architecture was first licensed and separated from construction, a different methodology, “design-bid-build,” became the standard path to project delivery. Architects hired by a property owner designed; when they finished, drawings describing the project were bid upon by competing contractors; finally, an owner would hire one of those contractors to eventually construct the building, with oversight provided by the original architect.

But beginning back in the Renaissance (and standard practice in many places outside the U.S. today), owners would contract with a single entity for architectural design, engineering and construction: design-build.

The pioneering modern design-build firm Cutler Associates, with offices in Worcester, as well as in Pennsylvania and Florida, describes how this works today: In a design-build project, design and construction schedules overlap. “As soon as basic parameters – building footprint and construction type – are established, site and foundation construction begins. Design detailing continues while construction is underway.” Owner and designer-builder intensively collaborate as a single team to establish schedules and accountability. Such a fast-track system can deliver complex buildings in ways that are both predictable and very quick.

A Complex Complex

Mt. Ida College in Newton now owns a design-build project, an iconic new residence hall, a “green” building constructed as part of the central core of its pastoral suburban campus. Once the estate of Civil War hero Robert Gould Shaw, Mt. Ida’s campus is home to around 1,500 students and continues to grow based on a campus master-plan by Boston architects Finegold Alexander + Associates.

The brief for Mt. Ida’s new residence hall was somewhat complex:

• the building would be situated on the side of a hill;

• there would need to be a maximum number of beds distributed as efficiently as possible,

• plus a faculty apartment and rooms for visiting scholars;

• there would be a student lounge/social space, the sort that could make for a sense of community;

• the building’s architecture would need a kind of “wow” factor, a way of distinguishing itself as a lovely and inspiring place to live;

• the budget would be tight, at around $250 per square foot;

• there would be a 20 person committee including Mt. Ida’s president Dr. Carol Matteson, development officers, faculty, students and trustees who would be making and approving all decisions.

• And the whole process could take only18 months from start to finish.

In the pressured world of building design and construction, a program like this is understood as: “They want to have their cake and eat it too!” And yetÂ…that very phrase was the title on the invitation to a recent celebratory, “Have your cake and eat it too” grand opening party at Mt. Ida’s new residence hall, which was, in fact, designed, constructed, finished and occupied by delighted student residents, all in less than 18 months.

Collaborative Effort

This residence hall is the result of a design-build collaboration between Cutler Associates and architects Finegold Alexander. Finegold Alexander is well known in Boston and around the U.S. for its historic restoration/renovation projects, as well as for housing, government buildings, religious and community centers. This project marked the first time these architects have designed a college residence hall.

They created at Mt. Ida a nearly ideal condition for an academic community where small groups of private rooms for 136 students nestle next to space for collaborative learning, the whole complex certifiable to a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver standard.

The building is comprised of two four-storey cubes sheathed in white stucco on a red-brick base, separated by an outdoor stair – also of brick – that connects to light and views beneath the building and to a pathway through the campus. The stucco reflects sunlight, creating a bright spot by day in an area of the campus otherwise marked by an array of darker buildings. The two cubes house private dorm rooms and their shared kitchens and showers which not incidentally, are powered by solar hot water. Connecting them is a glassy three-storey bridge, the community room of the residence hall, where group study and socializing takes place. Glowing light from this generous connector brightens this part of Mt. Ida’s campus at night, providing a situation in which campus life can see and be seen.

Mt. Ida College boasts a CIDA (Council for Interior Design Accreditation) accredited undergraduate program in Interior Design. Students from this program participated in the collaborative design with architects and committees, a process that enriched both the building and the life of the campus.

Key to this building though, the reason for Finegold Alexander’s being awarded their first college residence hall project, was their ability, with Cutler Associates, to deliver a complex building in record time: Design-build served these designers their cake and let them eat it, too.