Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons^™

Dcamm And Capital Stewardship, Sarah Felton

UMassBRUT Community

Created in 1980, the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM) manages some 68 million square feet of building space for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This talk focuses on some of the challenges DCAMM faces in managing these facilities at the state's higher education institutions where 74% of the building portfolio were built prior to 1981. After discussing the Commonwealth's priorities in Capital Investment, the talk concludes with a look at DCAMM-funded renovations to the Claire T. Carney Library and Science and Engineering Building at UMass Dartmouth.

Towards Civic Brutalism, Daniel Abramson

UMassBRUT Community

1960s Massachusetts was a Brutalist mecca, much of it with civic dimensions, mediating through architecture citizens' rights and identities. The expanded welfare state's administration in Massachusetts was consolidated in new buildings for federal, state, and municipal workers in Boston's Government Center, a top-down urban renewal process. Government Center's buildings, including Boston City Hall and the Massachusetts State Service Center, embodied Brutalist values of material integrity, monumentality, and abstraction. Little thought was given to the architecture's civic dimensions, how people would engage politically with each other and the state. Subsequently, City Hall Plaza functioned for decades as eastern Massachusetts' civic fairground, …

Umass Brut: Re-Imagining The Plinth, John Amodeo

UMassBRUT Community

Modeled on UVA’s Lawn, Paul Rudolph’s mid-century Brutalist UMass Dartmouth buildings march down both sides of a gently sloped great lawn following the grade with one exception, the Auditorium, which is raised above the quad’s lawn on a 6’ high plinth, accessed by monumental stairs underscoring the entire building. With its entries elusively tucked into the ends of the building, the Auditorium steps were ceremonial at best and vacant, functionless and windswept at worst.

Evolving tastes, priorities and social behavior over subsequent decades, and even more recently, the pandemic, have made indoor/outdoor relationships, outdoor space, and universal access a top …

Notes Towards A History Of The Brutalist Landscape, Marisa Angell Brown

UMassBRUT Community

When we talk about Brutalism, we are generally talking about architecture. Is there such a thing as the Brutalist landscape? If so, what defines it, and who are its practitioners? How does the Brutalist landscape navigate the relationship between plantings, hardscape and public art? What is it designed to do, and for whom? If the Brutalist landscape exists as a category, was it successful? Is the history of its public reception different from the reception of Brutalist architecture? This presentation lays out notes towards a history of the Brutalist landscape, considering the work of Bertrand Goldberg, M. Paul Friedberg, Lawrence …

Beholding Brutalism: A Cultural Landscape View, Elaine Stiles

UMassBRUT Community

This talk looks at the complexities of how we encounter monumental concrete not as art objects, but as elements of the cultural landscape with social meanings, relationships, and stories encoded into their spaces. This socially-driven approach rooted in historic and cultural context, renders fuller biographies of these places than aesthetics alone, and also enriches thinking about the futures of these monumental places.

Restoring History: Mixed-Use Hotel & Retail Center, William Chase Sisk

Symposium of Student Scholars

Monroe, Georgia, is a unique small town, located halfway between Athens and Atlanta. The small-town atmosphere and amenities have become a popular destination for people attracted to the historic buildings, downtown events and UGA football home games. Monroe is popular for its wedding venues, antique malls, and car shows, but there are not enough hotel rooms. Currently within the historic downtown, there are only one bed and breakfast, two AirBNB’s, and no hotels, although every downtown storefront is occupied by restaurants, retail stores, and businesses.

The need for overnight accommodations has raised the possibility of a new mixed-use hotel and …