By Kate Stephenson,
Executive Director
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| 35th Anniversary attendees |
On July 18th, over 200 alumni, instructors,
friends and family of Yestermorrow gathered to help celebrate the school’s 35th Anniversary. The day was filled with opportunities to reconnect with each
other, see projects around the Mad River Valley, talk about Yestermorrow’s
legacy in teaching design, check out improvements around campus, and hear about
plans for the future.
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| Larsen River House |
In the morning, a school bus and van filled with over 50
participants headed out to visit five homes around the Mad River Valley as part
of our Innovative Homes Tour. Started in 2003 as a fundraiser for Yestermorrow’s
Scholarship Fund, the Homes Tour has been a favorite with many local
architecture lovers. One highlight was a visit to Jon and Mary Larsen’s home on
the banks of the Mad River in Moretown. This zero net energy home designed by
Maclay Architects was built in 2008-2009 and features green roofs, a 12.6 kW
photovoltaic array and solar hot water system, and amazing views down into the
river.
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| Sylvia Smith, architect |
Back on campus, while the Timberframing class worked
diligently out in the Hangar to raise their timber frame, while John Connell
moderated a colloquium of architects and designers including John Anderson,
Sibyl Harwood, Ted Montgomery and Sylvia Smith. The goal of the panel was to “create a vocabulary and/or grammar for
people not professionally trained in design”. Panelists attempted to
answer the following questions: Do you
think a more accessible design discourse would have an appreciable impact on
the way the school educates or the projects it embraces? What are the most
misused (and thus misunderstood) terms of the professional designer, architect,
artists’ lexicon? What are the biggest challenges to lofting a more accessible
design conversation at the Yestermorrow School? The resulting conversation
engaged many members of the audience. You can read some of John Anderson’s
comments on
the Yestermorrow blog.
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| Prickly Mountain founding members |
Later in the day architect Duo Dickinson moderated a panel on the
design/build history of Prickly Mountain featuring a variety of Prickly “founders”
who still live nearby, including Dave Sellers, Dorothy Tod, Candy Barr, Richard
Travers, Bill Maclay, Jito Coleman, and Randy and Nancy Taplin. We heard about
the early days of Dave recruiting architecture students, offering them room and
board and $500 for the summer to come up to Vermont to design and build. Duo
asked whether something like Prickly Mountain could ever happen in this day and
age and the consensus was definitely no- that between the cost of land and building
materials these days it would be nearly impossible to replicate a similar type
of situation.
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| Preliminary Landscape Plan |
After the Prickly panel we gathered in the Main Studio for
an update on Yestermorrow’s master planning process. John Connell spoke about
the history of purchasing the 38-acre Alpen Inn property back in 1990, and I
recapped the more recent 5 years of master planning history. In 2011-2012 we
worked closely with the Regenesis
Group (Bill Reed, John Boecker and Joel Glanzberg) to set the framework for
our master planning process, explore the site and our place in the Mad River
Valley, and develop a vision, purpose and principles to guide our work going
forward. Since then we have created a “Core Team” made up of members of the
various stakeholder groups that has been working to develop the plans in more
detail, engage with experts in areas of stormwater, wastewater and systems
design, and move the plan forward through town and state permitting. All that
preparation has brought us to the exciting point where we expect to break
ground on the initial infrastructure work next spring and are ready to start
designing the first building in the plan—a shop classroom space. We sent out an
RFP looking for design/build teams in the spring and received 5 strong
proposals. We are excited to announce that we have selected Bast & Rood Architects, along with New
England Construction Company to work with us on the first project. Both Mac
Rood and Rob Bast (the firm’s two principals) have had a long history of
teaching here at Yestermorrow, Mac has served many years on the Yestermorrow
Board, including as President, and both have been very active serving the local
community and working with groups like ours on collaborative design processes.
Paul Sipple is an experienced contractor, and recent graduate of our Passive
House Builders Training. He and his crew specialize in commercial structures
and high performance building. They have also brought in Yestermorrow board
member and instructor Adam Cohen of PassivScience to consult on potential
Passive House certification.
After the big announcement, Mac Rood took the stage to tell
everyone about the process for stakeholder input on the new shop design. We’ll
kick off with an introductory public meeting on September 2nd, and
then hold a series of mini charrettes divided into different subject topics
including envelope, mechanical and energy systems, aesthetics, student
involvement, and more to be determined.
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| Jacob Mushlin at Yeopardy |
A highlight of the evening hour was the unveiling of “Yeopardy”
led by former intern and instructor, Jacob Mushlin. He led five teams through a
series of trivia questions related to Yestermorrow history, architectural
terms, notable personalities of Yestermorrow and more. Then in the second stage
of the “YesterOlympics” teams raced to hammer in nails, de-nail the boards, and
measure accurately without any measuring implements. Lots of fun was had by
both participants and audience members.
We finished the evening with great music from the Eames
Brothers Band while sipping local beers, enjoying amazing food, and watching the
sun set over the valley (before the torrential downpour started!). Inside we
watched old slides and movies from the YesterArchive and had a chance to catch
up with many old friends. It was certainly an anniversary to remember.
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