Bennington College Campus Landscape

This campus landscape unites a nineteenth-century farm, a turn-of-the-century estate, an early Beaux-Arts campus plan, and a series of distinguished modernist projects into a coherent whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Bennington College, located on 600 acres of rural land in the hills of southern Vermont, has undertaken a rebuilding program that addresses academic expansion and landscape rehabilitation simultaneously. The work builds upon a library expansion study and planning initiatives developed with Allied Works Architecture. The Master Plan, completed in collaboration with Kyu Sung Wu Architects, expands on the historic patterns of campus development and amplifies the distinct landscape characters of varied precincts.

The Master Plan

The plan simplifies and clarifies vehicle and pedestrian circulation routes, recaptures important views to the hills, and recommends specific guidelines for revegetating the campus to recapture horticultural richness and spatial beauty.

Building interventions are carefully situated with the rolling topography to leverage important views and connect to the larger landscape. A series of outdoor living and learning spaces provide opportunities ranging from intimate study to community gathering as an extension of the curriculum.