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For more than a year, I’ve kept a folder on my desk that was stuffed full of scribbled notes for the story I was working on when the pandemic hit. Every journalist, it seems, has a version of this folder ideas rendered moot by the arrival of our global calamity.
The story, about the architecture of libraries, was also a story about how women design for women. The library in question was one I knew intimately: Neilson Library, the central library at Smith College, the women’s college in Northampton, Mass., where I studied as an undergraduate.
My focus was a $120-million renovation of that space designed by Maya Lin Studio, in collaboration with Boston-based firm Shepley Bulfinch, which had devised Neilson’s master plan.
Triangular glass panels wrap Knight Center at the University of Oregon
A double-skin glass facade envelops the Knight Center, an Oregon research facility designed by American firms Ennead Architects and Bora Architecture & Interiors.
The building – officially called the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact – is located on the University of Oregon s campus in Eugene.
Angled glass panels designed to look like water cascading over rock
The project was made possible by a $500 million (£359 million) gift from Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny. Over the years, Phil Knight has been a significant contributor to the university, where he earned his bachelor s degree in 1959.