Davis Center, Williams College | Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA | 2024

Architects: Leers Weinzapfel Associates
Design Team: Josiah Stevenson, FAIA LEED AP, Tom Chung, FAIA LEED AP BD+C, Ashley Rao, AIA LEED AP, CPHC (Project Manager), Juliet Chun AIA; Vy Mai AIA NOMA; Danica Kane AIA; Su Poon AIA; Ben Wilcox AIA; Josh Liebla, Leers Weinzapfel Associates
Associate Architects: Jonathan Garland Enterprises
Client: Williams College
General Contractor: Consigli Construction
Photographers: Albert Vecerka / ESTO

The Davis Center manifests the enduring impact of student advocacy for social justice and inclusive community at Williams College. Tracing its roots to 1969 campus protests, the renovated and expanded Center reopened in 2024 as a hub of programs and spaces supporting historically underrepresented communities and advancing campus engagement with complex issues of identity, history and culture. Through a significant new addition and comprehensive energy retrofit renovations to the 19th century Rice and Jenness Houses, the new Davis Center provides fully accessible resources and community spaces for students and faculty. It symbolizes the College’s commitment to and progress toward a fully inclusive community dedicated to the social, emotional, and academic growth of all students.

The reimagined 25,800 sf Davis Center is a unified complex with a major new addition nestled between the existing, beloved Rice and Jenness Houses. A central public plaza unites the three buildings, bounded by a winding riverine bioswale defining the edge of the Davis Center precinct. The project carves a new universally accessible path down to Walden Street and establishes a new public entrance facing Spring Street, reaching out past campus edges to connect to Williamstown beyond.

Flanked by the hipped roofs and dormers of Rice House and Jenness House, the new wing of the Davis Center re-interprets domestic roof typologies with a dynamic roofscape echoing the peaks and valleys of the surrounding Berkshire mountain ranges. From within, this roofscape is experienced as a series of folded ceiling planes making each space in the upper level unique. The addition is clad in charred wood, a traditional Japanese technique called shou sugi ban that preserves wood using a technique of controlled, partial burning. The charring process creates a deep color and rich texture; it renders the wood fire retardant as well as resistant to rot, insects and decay. This charring process symbolizes and celebrates the resilience of minority communities in the face of adversity. Set within the context of Williamstown’s local vernacular of painted clapboard houses, the Davis Center’s charred wood cladding is deliberately distinct, intended to invite engagement and foster discussion.

Developed with extensive input from the nearly two dozen student groups that call the Davis Center home, the complex retains the residential scale of Jenness and Rice while establishing an open, transparent ground floor that acts as a civic invitation to broad campus engagement. It provides a variety of dynamic spaces to house academic, cultural and social programs, workshops, training, meetings and more. Among the new spaces is a large multipurpose room with moveable partitions to accommodate different types of gatherings. A well-equipped double kitchen allows students to prepare and host meals. There is ample room to study, gather and relax, including a porch off Jenness and a living room in Rice—both updated from the buildings’ previous incarnations—as well as a laptop bar in the bridge between Rice and the addition. An area for spiritual practice includes prayer mats and space for performing ablutions. Throughout the Davis Center, toilet rooms are all-gender and fully accessible.

Rigorous material research underpinned every aspect of the project. Each material incorporated into the Davis Center was carefully vetted to avoid Red List materials to the greatest extent possible. The Red List documents the “worst in class” substances prevalent in the building industry that pose serious risks to human health and the environment – not only at this site, but through the process of extraction, processing, and manufacture. Hazards include cancer, reproductive toxicity, organ toxicity, endocrine disruption, persistence, ozone depletion, and others. These impacts are borne disproportionately by socioeconomically disadvantaged and minority communities. Avoiding Red List materials and advocating for increased material transparency reflects the Davis Center’s commitment to environmental justice beyond the boundaries of this project.

Comprehensive carbon analysis guided decision making throughout the design process. Utilizing mass timber and engineered wood hybrid materials, the all-electric project removed fossil fuel-based heating systems and was built to rigorous environmental standards to support the College’s commitment to sustainability. The Davis Center is net-zero operational carbon and net-zero embodied carbon, incorporating fossil-fuel free systems, deep-energy retrofit strategies, adaptive reuse of existing buildings, low-carbon wood structure, and purchased carbon offsets.

Pursuing ILFI Living Building Challenge Petal Certification, the Davis Center at Williams College embraces a definition of sustainable design that is socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative.