Davis Center
Williams College
Williamstown, MA

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.

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.

The new addition reflects the domestic scale of neighboring Rice and Jenness Houses, but with an open, transparent ground floor that acts as a civic invitation to broad campus engagement. A dynamic folded roofscape references the peaks and valleys of the mountain ranges that surround the College. The addition is clad in charred wood, a symbolic celebration of the community’s resilience in the face of struggle and adversity.

The Davis Center is net-zero operational carbon and net-zero embodied carbon, incorporating fossil-fuel free systems, deep-energy retrofit strategies, adaptive reuse of existing buildings, low-carbon wood structure, purchased carbon offsets, and Red List-free materials. Pursuing Living Building Challenge Petal Certification, the Davis Center is a bold and vivid expression of Williams’ commitment to cultivating a community that is socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative.

in association with JGE Architecture + Design