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The Taft School Horace Dutton Taft Dining Hall
Restoring a school's most cherished building.
The 1913 Horace Dutton Taft Building (HDT) is the most historic, central and considered by the school to be the most important building on campus. More than just an upgrade of the school’s dining facilities, this project represents a comprehensive renovation of much of the school’s most significant building.
The Taft School
Horace Dutton Taft Dining Hall
Upgrading the heart of campus.
HDT is located at the physical and spiritual center of campus. The design of the dining hall acknowledges this by creating a place where the entire community can come together. The existing building had failed to meet various code requirements and the historic interiors were badly in need of restoration. The school wanted to preserve the centrality of the Taft dining experience. GUND’s plan created three dining halls, each connected to a servery, with a maximum seating of 680.
Three dining room experiences.
GUND added a new West Dining Room, a grand room with a working fireplace; renovated the existing East Dining Room; converted the existing kitchen/storage space into a new, more intimate North Dining Room with booth seating and moved the location of the servery and kitchen to a central location that provides easy access to all three dining rooms while allowing the servery to be expanded to better reflect today's dietary trends and preferences.
Creating new outdoor space.
The West Dining Room is located in the new Moorhead wing, which forms a new courtyard and reinvigorates the heart of campus. The addition respects and blends perfectly with the original historic architecture of the HDT building, designed by noted architect Bertram Goodhue.
More than just a dining hall.
The main spine through the building allows students to move from one side of the campus to the other without interrupting dining spaces. Students use the dining rooms during non-dining hours for study and social activities.
Let's aim for
extraordinary
together
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