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In fall of 2017 Professor Sigrid Miller Pollin's graduate Design Studio V embarked on a study of the historic Clark Hall on the UMass Amherst campus. These projects were designed by a small group of graduate students in Architecture as well as by a graduate student from our Historic Preservation program.

Click here for a look at the designs.

Students were charged with researching the history, past functions, and materiality of this preservation-worthy building. They were also assigned the task of accommodating a program for a new home for the university’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Students produced a wide range of proposals for adaptive reuse of Clark Hall as well as approaches for a new addition.  The class as a whole opted to advocate for the relocation of the existing green house function currently attached to the south façade of Clark Hall. 

At the end of the semester the student projects were presented to a review panel composed of architects from campus planning, faculty from the Department of Architecture as well as staff from the current museum and other invited guests.  The overarching outcome from these efforts was the notion that this project has the great potential to be another important marriage of historic preservation with contemporary architecture on our campus.  It also became readily apparent that our contemporary art museum should become brilliantly visible to our students, faculty, staff and to the public at large with this future facility.  With much high impact new construction and design taking place in the southern portion of our campus, namely the new John W. Olver Design Building and the new addition to the Isenberg School of Managment, the time is right to create a world class facility for studying, collecting and viewing contemporary art. We hope that these student proposals in concert with a professional feasibility study being explored this year will help to stimulate discussion and further vision for our new Museum of Contemporary Art and for the future adaptive reuse of Clark Hall.