Over his 16 years at Union College, Loren Rucinski has
often asked, “What would Joseph Jacques Ramée think?”
“We like to think that Ramée would be happy that we've
taken the time and expense to keep the campus (according to his
1813 plan),” said Rucinski, recently named the College's director
of facilities services.
The College has been successful in resisting a host of threats
to the landscape architect's vision: the architectural whims of the
1960s, the demand for more parking space, and thoroughfares
that bisect a number of other campuses. (“Ramée didn't have to deal
with cars,” Rucinski notes.) The result, he says, is a symmetrical campus
with “a large cut diamond in the center” (the Nott) that “leaves a
great impression with visitors.”
Rucinski joined the College as a campus planner in 1986, and
since then he can rightly claim, “there's not a spot on campus that I
haven't touched.” In fact there are some places on campus he has touched
a number of times as they have been adapted for new uses: Old
Chapel, Wells House and North Colonnade to name a few.
Perhaps the most rewarding part of his Union career was
the recent conversion of homes for student housing on Seward Place
as part of the Union-Schenectady Initiative, he said. The project
was challenging and rewarding in that the College pulled it together
so quickly and it has been praised by the community and
students, Rucinski said.
“Plenty of campuses do adaptive reuse, but we go the
extra mile that some others don't,” he said. On the Seward Place
project, for example, the College preserved or re-created architecturally
worthy elements such as moldings and wood floors, he noted.
Rucinski holds a BFA from Temple University, is a member
of the Society for College and University Planners and
the Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers.