NEWS
Ogg Hall replacement approved by planning committee
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by Aubre Andrus
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
The Joint Southeast Campus Area Committee approved plans for the Dayton Street and Park Street Dormitory Project, the replacement for Ogg Hall, Monday night.
According to Ald. Mike Verveer, Dist. 4, plans must be approved by the Madison Plan Commission and the Madison Urban Design Commission before the project moves to the City Council for its final approval in March.
The destruction of Ogg Hall and the creation of new dorms on the southeast side of campus is part of a large multi-year master plan to improve the campus area, according to Paul Evans, director of University Housing. The growing demand for university housing for first-year students at the University of Wisconsin is expected to be met with this plan.
Architects originally planned to create one dorm in place of Ogg Hall’s 980-bed space, Evans said. Since the architects did not want to build another high-rise building, a single dorm would only have space for only 500 to 600 beds, which was not a sufficient replacement.
The current plan includes changing the property across from Gordon Commons, currently where Ogg Hall sits, into a park with basketball and volleyball courts as well as places for students to sit on the lawn. A two-building dorm would be built across the street next to the Southeast Recreational Facility.
Architect Peter Lindsay Schaudt of Peter Lindsay Schaudt Landscape Architecture, Inc., said students would love the new open space in front of Gordon Commons. Without the high-rise Ogg Hall building in front of Gordon Commons, the environment would dramatically improve in the area, allowing more light into the courtyard area, Schaudt said.
By fall 2007, the new dorm, tentatively re-named Ogg Hall, would open on the corner of Park Street and Dayton Street, and at the end of the school year, the old Ogg Hall on West Johnson Street would be demolished.
“We’d like to change it from, ‘Oh my God, I got assigned to Ogg’ to ‘I wish I got assigned to Ogg,’” Evans said.
Architect Del Wilson of Uihlein-Wilson Architects said the new two-building dorm would be five stories tall with five clusters of eight beds in each house. Every housefellow would be in charge of 40 students resulting in a total of 15 “houses,” three more than the current Ogg Hall. Every four rooms would share a private bathroom with two toilets and two showers each, he added.
There would be social spaces along every hallway and the architects are steering away from the typical long, claustrophobic corridor to promote social interaction, Wilson said. A lounge with a kitchen and a study room for each community would also promote a social environment, he added.
“We’re looking for ways to get students out of their rooms to meet other students,” Evans said.
Ald. Austin King, Dist. 8, said he is excited for the new dormitory.
“I think this is a phenomenal project,” King said. “The floor plan will make this worthy of the Ogg legacy.”
Alan Fish, vice chancellor of Facilities, Planning and Management, said in the future there are plans to build two or three smaller dorms in the lakeshore area.
