Davis Center Building Project Interview

The Davis Center on campus is committed to “broad campus engagement with complex issues of identity, history, and cultures as they affect intellectual, creative, and social life.” Over the past few years, the buildings that make up the DC have been undergoing significant renovation in hopes of better serving the Williams community and achieving accessibility and sustainability goals. Scott Henderson is one of the main leads of the DC building project. 

Jennifer Hernández, Zilkha Center EcoRep Intern, connected with Scott Henderson to ask him about the project, his role, and what excites him about the new Davis Center building which you can read below. Make sure you stop by the new Davis Center building when construction is complete! This article is edited lightly for length and clarity.

Hernández

What is your role in the project?

Henderson

I represent Williams, the owner. So my role is to make sure that the people I hired to do all the design work have done their job well enough that the people I hired to do the construction know what they’re doing and can build this building properly. I keep everyone moving [to] make sure that [the] college [is] getting what we want out of the end result. So I’m over [at the site] at least once a day just checking in with everybody. And then we have weekly meetings. So on the project management side, [its] kind of big picture. So I check back with the Davis Center folks to make sure they’re up to speed with everything if they have to make decisions. That’s my responsibility. And I bring that back to the team. And, you know, all the way down to working with [Williamstown] and the inspections and all that stuff. So it’s fun.

Hernández

For the DC building project, what are some new features that are going to be implemented to improve the sustainability of the building, and Williams College in general?

Henderson

So, one thing we did was try and preserve as many of the existing structures as we can. The most sustainable approach is to renovate an existing building versus tear[ing] it down and build[ing] new. So we were able to do that with two of the four buildings on that site. And then to be able to put them back in a way … that satisfies the sort of goals of the project, not just programmatically, but the sustainability goals. So when we have projects, we assign energy goals, as well as things like Living Building Challenge, or in the past, we’ve done LEED or passive house. And to do that, we’re doing a few things. One is to make them very energy efficient. So adding lots of insulation, to get in better windows and doors. So they’re becoming much more efficient than they ever were, especially Rice House. And then the other thing is, we’re taking them off fossil fuels and going all electric. And that ties into the College’s medium voltage system that runs underground. So it’s it becomes part of the campus network of energized buildings. So you know, a few of the houses had natural gas, and one house still had oil – those are all removed [and] all new systems [are] coming into place.

Hernández

Has sustainability been a theme from the beginning? Or is it something that students advocated for?

Henderson

It’s built into our capital projects. It’s evolved to the current one, which is this Living Building Challenge. What’s nice about this one, though, is it allows for input from the  project committee, which involves students all the way up to staff and faculty in there, so they were able to sort of offer some input on that.

Hernández

Have there been any challenges so far in implementing sustainability? Has it been more expensive than not centering that as the theme of the project? Or has it been pretty smooth sailing?

Henderson

I don’t know if it’s ever smooth sailing. But there’s an upfront cost, but we measure that against the lifecycle of the building makes it a worthwhile cost you spend upfront so it’s a better building for 50 years. So we kind of accept that at the outset of the project when we set the budge. For this project, we’re doing all wood frame construction, and wood siding on the new building, so the wood is meant to be FSC. The Forest Stewardship Council sort of certifies certain types of wood that had been grown on purpose to be used as lumber and in their replenishing their forests as they cut down trees. So it’s, it’s tied to their process. So the wood specified for this project is meant to be through that process. And that adds a challenge, especially coming out of that period when wood became this hot commodity, and they almost ran out at one point. So it seemed like that was going to be a challenge. And it has been a little bit but we’ve managed, sort of when you get the right team on the project. Everyone works their resources to work to find ways to get what we need for that.

Hernández

Are almost all of the materials sourced locally? Or is it sort of all throughout the US?

Henderson

As much as we can, it’s locally, we try and do a 500-mile radius. There are challenges to that, but we’ve been fairly successful with that. And it’s, it’s pretty exciting that the primary structure is from Canada, and it’s getting fabricated in Rhode Island. So it’s, it’s nearby, it’s kind of within our range, and it worked out really well.

Hernández

How does this project fit into the college’s wider plans for sustainability?

Henderson

So this is a fully Living Building Challenge-certified project that is petal certified. You can do the full certification or you can select certain petals. So we selected petals because we have our own energy goals, and we did not pursue [the] water petal, which is a challenging petal, where we’re at geographically, but in the past, it’s been sort of in collaboration with something else like LEED. So it’s [a] new direction that we’re trying to establish for these capital projects. So this was a big one because it represented two things in sustainability. In this case, if you sort of shift your mindset away from architecture, the other petals have to do with equity, health, and happiness. So it really shifts to the people in the building, who will use this building. So when COVID hit and everything shut down, this project only stalled for a few months, because President Mandel had committed to this project, both for sustainability reasons, but also through the sort of diversity, equity, and inclusion aspects of the project. And the two are really linked up. Because when you talk about this equity petal in the Living Building Challenge, it talks about sort of who gets uses and benefits from the space. And that directly ties into the DEI goals of the college and what’s represented by the Davis Center as basically the Multicultural Center in providing these better spaces that they that have never been offered to students within that community. So it’s, it’s interesting because such a bigger picture in sustainability starts to really involve a more people-centric approach, versus just how we build buildings. It’s like, why we build buildings, and who gets to use these buildings, and who can access these buildings. So we’re providing universal access to all the buildings and getting to the buildings, which it’s always been a challenge coming up. If you go up from the Walden Street side, trying to climb the Circle Drive, we’re creating better access there. And then from Spring Street, up Bank Street, there’ll be a lower lobby with elevators. So it’s a more holistic approach to how we build and I think that’s gonna carry forward which is great.

Hernández

Okay, so is this going to be a model for future buildings, especially in regard to sustainability, racial justice, and accessibility?

Henderson

Yep, definitely. I think what we’ve done in the past on projects is always asked our construction company to try to source their subcontractor work, their plumbing, their mechanical work carpentry to companies that are either minority business enterprises or women-owned business enterprises with reasonable percentages, maybe five to 7% of what they’re bringing onto our campus. But that’s always been at an ownership level. So a company could be, say, a woman-owned business, or a painting company, but who’s showing up might not be representative of the ownership. So what we did is say, let’s bring that to the workforce. And what percentages can we get? So people showing up represent the same sort of ideas around diversity that are within the Davis Center. So it’s interesting to see that so we’ve been at about over 30% minority workforce, and we’ve been around 2 to 3% on the women’s workforce levels, which has been challenging because I’m hoping once we get into some finishing work, it expands a little bit, but it’s been something we track. And now we’re talking about this museum project, possibly being this next big project. It’s the same contractor as the Davis Center. So they fully understand our goals coming off Davis, and we’ll carry those ideas into the museum project. So I think we’ll have this momentum going forward where it becomes part of our process, and who’s working on our campus.

Hernández

What has been your favorite part of working on this project?

Henderson

My favorite part has been that the Living Building Challenge has a sustainability charrette. So everyone brings their ideas to this. And that can be if you’re on the committee, or if you were just invited. So we had a big group show up, the committee on this project is about 23 people. So it’s a big commitment, and then all the design team. And I see [through the] discussions, what’s important to people. And some people brought just an image of something more architectural, but other people brought pattern blankets from Africa, and someone else brought these baskets that were made up the road in the White Oaks neighborhood when it was a predominantly Black neighborhood. And that all that wrapped into the project [and it has] really shaped the design and the siding and all these different aspects of the project. So it’s been interesting to have four years working on this project. Remember all that and now to see it being built in, even though it’s just a building at the end of the day. But I know the backstory. Even the guys putting up the wood walls and stuff like that, they’re stopping [to] tak[e] pictures. Everyone’s taking pride in [the Davis Center Project] so you can sense that it really is a community that built this building.

Hernández

Is there any specific room or feature that you’re really excited for students to experience?

Henderson

Yeah, there are two. The first is the Bridge, which will connect this big addition to the old Rice House. And Rice house has a small addition. But between those two, there’s this bridge, which you’ll look out, you can look either towards the science building, which isn’t that interesting. Or you look the other way, and you look over Spring Street to the mountains, and it’s going to be a laptop bar. So you can sit there and do your work. And they have this great view. So it’s one of the best views on campus. And then this other one is the spirituality room, which is meant to be used by anyone … that can’t find a space where they can practice their beliefs somewhere else on campus. It’s going to be really nice room. But it’s just going to be this new type of space that I don’t think exists on campus.


Jennifer Hernandez ’23 is a 22-23 academic year EcoRep intern with the Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives at Williams College.