The University acquired the Elihu B. Taft School from the City of Burlington in 2016 and began a comprehensive transformation of the building to turn the former elementary school turned charter school into a university quality space for the education of digital arts, film and television, dance, studio art and other general purpose education classes. The mission of the project was to create a space where the usually separate art departments can co-mingle and expose those not ordinarily exposed to the arts. The primary transformation was completed in the fall of 2018. A sprung dance floor was installed in the dance studio that Winter and the former gym was fully renovated into a white box theater for collaborative performances by the dance, music, digital, film & television, and studio art departments.

At that time a seminar space was renovated to provide a Collision Lab for the collaboration between students of different programs to meet and create new art. Another classroom was also renovated into a hybrid classroom for learning skills requried to plan, execute, refine, and create technologically oriented art both in-and-out of the computer.

The exterior of the building was also rehabilitated. Masonry, carpentry, metal and slate roofing, and stone resetting work was performed to catch up on prior deferred maintenance. All the windows were removed, restored, and reinstalled to preserve the historic character of the building that was important to the project donors.

Scott + Partners led the project from programming of the spaces with multiple departments and colleges at UVM, through the design and construction phases of the project.

‍

Read more: https://www.uvm.edu/uvmnews/news/uvm-opens-michele-and-martin-cohen-hall-integrative-creative-arts

The University Music Department had a beautiful performance space that suffered from poor acoustics and a lack of back-house space. Through a collaborative design process with a multi-faceted client team, Scott + Partners found creative and efficient ways to provide backstage practice spaces, piano storage, and a green room. Wheelchair access grants access to the bottom of the seating area as well as the stage. A connection between the stage and the piano storage room was created through a twelve-inch concrete wall so instruments can be wheeled directly from stage to storage that doubles as a piano rehersal room. An overhead door to the drive way behind the building improves load-in/load-out workflows.

DLR group was a part of the project team to improve acoustics in the performance space, and the original seating was refitted with new fabrics by the original installer.

The exterior was designed to reference the shapes and proportions of the existing performance space. The height of the addition off the back was selected to match the changes in height of the original steps down on the facade. The materials were selected to relate to the existing board siding. The stepping of the walls in the back was directly related to existing site conditions and shallow bedrock that limited relocation of existing underground utililties, but rather than being strictly reactive to those conditions, the form in plan also relates to the stepping of the original and new building heights.

The University needed an entrance structure at the east wing of the Central Campus Residence Hall complex to protect the door from inclement weather. Scott + Partners studied the building to determine that snow falling from roofs above should be deflected from the entry. Several options were created and discussed with the UVM team. Concepts were intentionally scaled from very utilitarian to formal to organic. They also were designed to reflect and contrast the rectilinear forms of the building. Each idea was modeled and rendered to effectively describe the ideas to all project stakeholders so meaningful decisions could be made.

The central campus are of UVM had three small dorm buildings that did not offer the necessary capacity for growing student body.  These two new buildings create 475 new residential spaces for students along with a new dining hall, exercise facility, and Residential Life offices right in the heart of campus.  The West Wing connects directly to the all-glass enclosed Howe Library addition that was part of this project.  

Designed by WTW Architects of Pittsburgh, Scott + Partners provided constructability review, code guidance, consultant coordination, and were the daily field presence for construction activities throughout construction and commissioning.

‍

The Howe Lbrary's media collection was expanding beyond the capacity of the existing archive space. The University asked WTW Architects of Pittsburgh, PA to design an addition to house a portion of the media collection and provide new student use space overlooking the new Central Campus Residence Halls they were designing at the same time. The glass enclosed Howe Library addition is connected to the residence halls by an exposed-steell bridge.

Scott + Partners provided constructability review, code guidance, consultant coordination, and were the daily field presence for construction activities throughout construction and commissioning of the additiona as well as the residence halls.

‍