Since 2008, when
The Eden Hall Foundation donated the 338-acre Eden Hall Farm in Richland Township to
Chatham University,
the school has been hard at work developing plans for a revolutionary
second campus on the property. Last week, Chatham unveiled its master
plan for the
Eden Hall Campus,
which will house the newly formed School of Sustainability and the
Environment and will be the first campus in the nation to integrate
sustainable development, learning, and living.
"Eden
Hall Campus and the School of Sustainability and the Environment are at
the leading edge of a global movement toward a sustainable future,"
says Dr. Esther Barazzone, president of Chatham University. "Together,
the school and the campus will be a one-of-a-kind living laboratory,
advancing understanding and progress as we seek sustainable answers to
the world's social, economic, and environmental concerns."
Chatham worked with architects
Berkebile Nelson Immenschuh McDowell and landscape designers
Andropogon Associates to develop the master plan, with financial support from
Richard King Mellon Foundation and
PNC.
The plan calls for 20 years worth of projects including LEED certified
dorms, academic facilities, greenhouses, and wetlands, designed not only
for The School of Sustainability and the Environment but for many other
programs to utilize. For instance, the first facilities will feature
kitchen teaching space for The Food Studies department.
Chatham
hopes to break ground by late spring on the estimated $30 million first
phase of the project, which entails one to three years of intensive
landscape restoration, and the conversion of two existing barns and
construction of a new building into the Mueller Center Campus
facilities. The buildings will serve as classroom space, two small
dorms, a dining hall, an aquaponics facility, and two greenhouses.
The
Mueller Center Campus is one of four sections of the overall campus detailed in
the master plan, which calls for development of only half of the
338-acres. The rest will be left to nature to develop.
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Writer:
John Farley
Source: Esther Barazzone, Chatham University
Robert Berkebile, BNIM
Image courtesy of Chatham University and BNIM