Williams College Davis Center

The Davis Center manifests the enduring impact of student advocacy for social justice and inclusive community at Williams College. Tracing its roots to 1969 campus protests, the renovated and expanded Center reopened in 2024 as a hub of programs and spaces supporting historically underrepresented communities and advancing campus engagement with complex issues of identity, history and culture. Through a significant new addition and comprehensive energy retrofit renovations to the 19th century Rice and Jenness Houses, the new Davis Center provides fully accessible resources and community spaces for students and faculty. The reimagined 25,800 sf Davis Center is a unified complex with a major new addition nestled between the existing, beloved Rice and Jenness Houses. A central public plaza unites the three buildings, bounded by a winding riverine bioswale defining the edge of the Davis Center precinct. The project carves a new universally accessible path down to Walden Street and establishes a new public entrance facing Spring Street, reaching out past campus edges to connect to Williamstown beyond.   Flanked by the hipped roofs and dormers of Rice and Jenness Houses, the new wing of the Davis Center re-interprets domestic roof typologies with a dynamic roofscape echoing the peaks and valleys of the surrounding Berkshire mountains. From within, this roofscape is experienced as a series of folded ceiling planes making each space in the upper level unique. The addition is clad in charred wood, a symbolic celebration of the community’s resilience in the face of struggle and adversity. The charring process creates a deep color and rich texture; it renders the wood fire retardant as well as resistant to rot, insects and decay. Developed with extensive input from the nearly two dozen student groups that call the Davis Center home, the complex retains the residential scale of Jenness and Rice while establishing an open, transparent ground floor that acts as a civic invitation to broad campus engagement. It provides a variety of dynamic spaces to house expanded academic, cultural and social programs. The new spaces include a large multipurpose room with moveable partitions, a double kitchen that allows students to prepare and host meals, and an area for spiritual practice and ablution.