Projects

Education Case Studies

Princeton University
Whitman College
Princeton, New Jersey

Torcon provided comprehensive preconstruction and construction phase CM services for Whitman College at Princeton University. The multi-building complex is a residential college that houses students from all four undergraduate classes and some graduate students.

Demetri Porphyrios, principal of London-based Porphyrios Associates, was the design architect for Whitman College. The firm of Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Architects served as executive architect for the project.

The 280,000 square foot Whitman College comprises 10 linked buildings that include seven dormitory buildings with housing for approximately 500 students. A 100-ft.-high tower building features administrative offices, classrooms and seminar rooms. Whitman College also provides meeting and common rooms and a library, as well as a drama theater with seating for 65, and a dance practice room with a fully-sprung floor.

Community Hall, a limestone-clad building, houses a dining room with 35-foot ceilings emphasized by 8-ft.-high oak panels. Circular windows, a vaulted, wood-beamed ceiling, bluestone floors and an ornate fireplace are featured in the main room and flanking cafe space and provide seating for 220 people. Two additional dining rooms provide space for groups of up to 24 people each, including one octagonal room lit by a central chandelier.

Whitman College's exterior facade, features 5,200 tons of hand-set fieldstone, and was installed by a team of 77 stone masons and 30 laborers to meet the project's requirements for color, shape and pattern. Each of the 175,000 stones was chiseled and custom fit on the scaffold. The project’s exterior walls are 18- to 20-inches thick and use modern, cavity-wall, load-bearing masonry construction methods. The exterior also features Indiana limestone for window surrounds and arched openings, two building facades and the cloister. Whitman College also uses slate roofs on each of the buildings and more than 1,500 custom-fabricated mahogany casement windows.

The project's landscaping plan included 24-ft. of fill in the north courtyard. The plan features 219 trees, with several 50-year old, 55-ft. tall Cedars of Lebanon. Torcon was construction manager for the project, which began design in 2002, followed by a construction phase that began in July 2004 and was completed in summer of 2007.