This semester, the School of Architecture officially left Bond Hall — its home for more than 50 years — and relocated to the newly-constructed Walsh Family Hall.
Michael Lykoudis, dean of the school of architecture, said while he enjoyed his time in Bond, its location felt estranged from other areas of campus.
“I’d say, ‘We’re a little bit like Hawaii. We’re the smallest state in the Union, the furthest West and a little exotic,’” he said.
Lykoudis said Walsh Family Hall’s position on the edge of campus makes the school easier to find and it offers better parking access.
“The location of the building is a great advertisement, if you will, for the school,” he said.
The new building’s floor plan also affords architecture students more opportunity to collaborate and mix, he added.
“Studios were all broken up on different floors and in some cases, smaller rooms. So, it was hard to have communication of ideas between the studios,” he said. “Here we have big floor plates on two floors … so there’s going to be a greater sense of community, greater sense of what studio culture is about.”
Professor of architecture Philip Bess said he will always have a nostalgic appreciation for Bond.
“Bond is in a great section of campus, you know?” he said. “From my office I could see the Dome and the lakes.”
While the new location offers access to many different parts of campus, Bess said he will miss the historic quarter of Notre Dame.
“We’re further away from the heart of campus,” he said.
Senior architecture student Patrick Keough said he looks forward to using the new spaces in Walsh Family Hall.
“The new studios will be a new dynamic for our studio culture,” he said.
Though the new building offers certain advantages, the move to Walsh Family Hall was bittersweet, Keough said.
“I know many of my classmates will dearly miss Bond because of the great memories we had inside of it,” he said.
While the future of Bond Hall is uncertain, it will likely house offices for other academic departments, vice president for facilities design and operations and University architect Doug Marsh said in an email.
“[Bond] is being considered for a variety of academic space that will be centered on undergraduate teaching and learning,” he said in the email. “More information on the backfill planning for Bond Hall will be forthcoming in the early part of the Spring Semester.”
Lykoudis said the building's location and design works well as a representation of the Notre Dame academic mission.
“Architecture really embodies the unity of knowledge, which is what we at Notre Dame talk about an awful lot,” he said. “I think the building symbolizes that.”
