Eliot House Courtyards - Harvard University

MSA has designed the arrival court for Eliot House, one of Harvard's undergraduate residential complexes. The design emphasizes the views down Dunster Street framing the main entry. A low evergreen hedge encloses a brick courtyard lined with honey locusts. Granite benches, offset from the primary pathway, provide seating and frame the entrance to the courtyard while a decorative granite border in the paving marks the transition. The bicycle parking and automobile loading areas are separated from the courtyard by a planting of hollies and rhododendrons. We gave careful consideration to pedestrian traffic patterns and the need for an identifiable arrival area at Eliot House where it connects to Kirkland House. The plan shows plants and materials that are appropriate to the scale, architecture and ambience of the existing quadrangle.