Ford Hall is a four-story academic hall at

Willamette University Willamette University is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college with locations in Salem, Oregon, Salem and Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1842, it is the oldest college in the Western United ...

in Salem in the U.S. state of

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

. Completed in 2009, the building houses classrooms, offices, and laboratories from several disciplines of the school's College of Liberal Arts. The structure cost $16 million and earned

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a Green building certification systems, green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating ...

(LEED) Gold certification upon completion for environmentally friendly features and construction. Ford Hall is named in honor of

Hallie Ford Hallie Brown Ford (March 17, 1905 – June 4, 2007) was an American business person and philanthropist. A native of Oklahoma, she acquired her wealth in Oregon through the timber industry. As a philanthropist she made donations to many institut ...

, who contributed $8 million towards construction of the building.

History

Plans for a new academic building on the Willamette campus surfaced as early as January 2006 when the university hoped to build an $8 to $12 million facility. In October 2006, the university received an $8 million donation to go towards building a new academic hall on the campus. Anonymous at the time, the gift was the largest ever gift from a person to the school, and the second largest donation ever after an $11 million donation by Tokyo International University of America in 2003 to help build the Kaneko Commons. It was later revealed that Hallie Ford made the donation, and the building was subsequently named after her. The new building was estimated to cost $16 million total to build and would be a structure designed to add 25 professors to the faculty and be used to house media studies, computer sciences, rhetoric, and mathematics. Expected to be finished by the new school year in 2009, the hall was to be built next to

Gatke Hall Gatke Hall is the second-oldest building at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, United States. A two-story structure, it was originally built in downtown Salem in 1903 across the street from the Marion County Courthouse and served as a post o ...

on the northeast corner of the campus. Work on the project began with the removal of trees from the site in December 2007. Some trees were moved, while other were planned to be re-used in the new building. Hennebery Eddy Architects were hired by Willamette in 2007 to design the new building, with Timothy R. Eddy as the principal architect. The school hired Hoffman Construction as the

general contractor A contractor (North American English) or builder (British English), is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and the communication of information to all involved parties throughout the c ...

and hoped to achieve LEED Gold Certification for the building. Joshua Carlson was the landscape designer on the project. While originally planned to be , by the time construction began the final design called for of space in Ford Hall. During construction, the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters picketed the school in a dispute with one of the

subcontractor A subcontractor is a person or business which undertakes to perform part or all of the obligations of another's contract, and a subcontract is a contract which assigns part of an existing contract to a subcontractor. A general contractor, prime ...

s working on Ford Hall. The sustainability aspects of the building helped Willamette land on the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization with chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded in 1892, in San Francisco, by preservationist John Muir. A product of the Pro ...

’s Cool Schools list in 2009, as Ford Hall was anticipated to earn a LEED Gold rating, which was earned later that year. Ford Hall also earned recognition in the 2030 Challenge Award as a runner-up for the as built category.

Details

Oregon State Capitol The Oregon State Capitol is the building housing the Oregon Legislative Assembly, state legislature and the offices of the Governor of Oregon, governor, Oregon Secretary of State, secretary of state, and Oregon State Treasurer, treasurer of t ...

. Ford was the first new academic hall on campus since 1996 when the Olin Science Center was completed. School officials hoped to use the project to draw more students to that section of the campus, which was previously underutilized, as well as to incorporate many

environmentally friendly Environment friendly processes, or environmental-friendly processes (also referred to as eco-friendly, nature-friendly, and green), are sustainability and marketing terms referring to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies that c ...

features into the new building. These green amenities included using brick, copper, stone, and other building materials that have a long lifespan. Brick is used for the exterior and copper for the roof. Other items include a

displacement ventilation Displacement ventilation (DV) is a room air distribution strategy where conditioned outdoor air is supplied at a low velocity from air supply diffusers located near floor level and extracted above the occupied zone, usually at ceiling height. Sys ...

HVAC system, solar panels, use of recycled materials in the construction, and maximizing the use of natural light throughout the structure. Overall, the energy consumption is 58 percent less than for a similar building built to

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communicati ...

. LEED Gold status was awarded on December 10, 2009, by the

U.S. Green Building Council The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), founded in 1993, is a private 501(c)(3), membership-based non-profit organization that promotes sustainability in building design, construction, and operation. USGBC is best known for its development of t ...

. Ford Hall houses a mixture of programs from across departments within the college of

liberal arts Liberal arts education () is a traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term ''skill, art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the fine arts. ''Liberal arts education'' can refe ...

. The four-story, brick-faced building houses programs from rhetoric, computer science, film studies, mathematics, and digital art, among others. This includes recording studios, a film viewing room, and a space for performances in the below-ground level. The first floor of the three above-ground levels includes an art studio and art gallery, while the other two floors contain laboratories, classrooms, and offices for staff. These upper floors also contain what the school labels as

hearth A hearth () is the place in a home where a fire is or was traditionally kept for home heating and for cooking, usually constituted by a horizontal hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos (a low, partial ...

s, in which each department in the building has one, and which they are designed to encourage collaboration between students as well as between the faculty and students.

References

External links

New Metal on Campus
- Hennebery Eddy Architects {{Willamette University Willamette University buildings University and college buildings completed in 2009 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold certified buildings 2009 establishments in Oregon