GX Project Background What's it all about? The original GX project in the summers of 2000 and 2001 covered areas of the Homewood campus from the North Gate near the Athletic Center down to the Beach and the Lower Quad. GX2 extends the philosophy and general design theme of this original GX to a new area of campus. The philosophy comes from the Homewood campus plan, completed in 2000: Make the core areas of Homewood safer, more pedestrian-friendly and much more attractive. Accomplish this by diverting car and truck traffic to the perimeter of campus, away from the greatest concentrations of students, faculty and staff on foot. No more admissions tours interrupted by Pepsi trucks. Reduced chances for car-pedestrian or car-bike collisions. More greenery; more serenity. In general, the idea is to make Homewood more like a campus and less like a freeway. The design theme: Echo the campus architecture; rip out ugly bands of asphalt. Replace them with brick. Add marble accents atop walls and similar features. Add lots of grass, trees and shrubs. The area: The GX2 work will focus on an area from the new Hodson Hall eastward between Levering and Garland Halls to Latrobe, and north from there past Levering and the Glass Pavilion to Gilman. What will it look like when it's done? You can get a good idea by calling up this artist's rendering. Nice, huh? In general, here's the timetable: Some light prep work began in early May. The heavy work gets going right after commencement, around Memorial Day. By the beginning of fall semester, the area from Hodson to Latrobe will be finished; Hodson Hall will open for its first classes at the same time. The northern portion of the site, from Latrobe to Gilman, will be completed in October. The work is a lot more complicated than just ripping out the old asphalt, throwing down bricks and planting sod and trees. There's a lot of underground work as well: installation of utilities like storm water management systems and electric conduit for street lights. And new features will be added to existing buildings to make them consistent with the look of GX. There will be, for instance, a new retaining wall around Garland, a new handicapped ramp on Latrobe, and a new covered entrance on the lower level of Levering.
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