Will & Perkins architects started the process of designing new dorms during a meeting with Cluster Council representatives on Friday, November 1st. The project includes the construction of a quad located behind Graves, capable of housing 120 to 160 students in 3 to 4 dorms.
Instead of expanding Andover’s student body, the new quad would enable students to transition out of the smaller Abbot dorms, which could then be repurposed as faculty housing. The motive behind this change is to reduce the strain on faculty by consolidating housing, as each dorm is required to have at least one resident faculty member. Alberto Agudo Dieguez ’25 elaborated on the architects’ objectives.
“The plan that they have is expanding the Abbot campus to take away the smaller dorms, the ones that are five, four, people and merge those dorms. Those [new] dorms wouldn’t be more capacity for the school, they would just be larger dorms which require less faculty to be run…the smaller dorms are much more heavy for faculty to run. Because you need more people, more faculty per student ratio,” said Agudo Dieguez.
Though architects have already begun gathering ideas, the project is still in an early stage. Tracy Sweet, Chief Communications Officer, described the many factors going into determining the feasibility of the dorms’ construction.
“It’s critical to note that the project itself has not gotten the green light from the Board of Trustees. Everything is preliminary and based on draft plans that could change. Part of the planning includes projecting costs and sources of funds. Philanthropic support will be essential, and colleagues in the Office of Academy Resources are working to gauge donor interest,” wrote Sweet in an email to The Phillipian.
Involving students as well as faculty, this project is a part of a wider exploratory approach aiming to gather feedback from different parts of the Andover community. Susan Esty, Dean of Students and Residential Life, shared her thoughts on the planning process.
“I hope it generates lots of good input for dreaming about you know what the future at andover might look at…I was really excited that right from the start anything that we looked at for the future of Phillips Academy involved the voices of students, faculty, lots of different constituent groups. I like that method, it takes more time, it’s messier, right? You will get more different opinions the more people you ask but I think that’s a healthy and inclusive process,” said Esty.
With an emphasis on communal spaces, the discussion gathered students’ thoughts on shared bathrooms and rooms. Genie Han ’27 described her impression of the upcoming buildings.
“The new dorms, from what I can tell, are going to be extremely well-catered towards the needs of students in the sense that we’re going to develop them based on student feedback. We’re going to develop brand-new dorms that have better bathrooms, nicer facilities — places on campus that students would want to live in. This could look like single bedrooms or bathrooms that aren’t necessarily communal,” said Han.
Mentioning features such as a beach volleyball court and a fire pit, the architects encouraged students to openly share their ideas and visions. Philip Molina ’28 offered his thoughts on the possible implementation of quiet study spaces in the newly built dorms.
“They know that there are very little study room in the library, so they want to build some in the dorms for people who have a group project or want to just go to the common room but not [be bothered] by the noise. That would be a great addition — creating small cubicles for people to study in,” said Molina.
Expected to not be finished before ten years, the project aims to interview teachers and students during at least a year. Audrey Baeten-Ruffo ’28 provided further details on the timeline and steps involved.
“Right now, they are doing about a year’s worth of work of just outreaching and gathering ideas from the community. I asked if the dorms are going to be built by the time when any of us are still here, and they said probably not. The building is going to take probably over a year, after the designing, going through all the processes with the Board of Trustees and getting approvals for all the designs,” said Baeten-Ruffo.
