Pub Design Veered Away from Modern

When students sit down at the Queen’s Head pub and sip their first Harvard brews next February, they will be surrounded by wood-paneled walls and decor in the style of Memorial Hall.

But members of the Loker Pub Project at first considered sketches that would have made the pub look more like a modern sushi bar than an 18th century British watering hole.

The Loker Pub Project initially hired the Boston architecture firm Office dA to conduct a feasibility study last fall. But when the firm’s designers drew up conceptual sketches for a pub that had a more modern feel, students—both those involved with the project and those consulted in focus groups—expressed a desire for a more traditional pub, according to Project Manager for Loker Commons Planning and Program Development Zachary A. Corker ’04.

Miller Dyer Spears (MDS)—the Boston-based architecture firm that renovated the Adams House Dining Hall in 1997—was thus hired to replace Office dA and design an English-style pub.

Office dA had been hired to complete the feasibility study, not to design the pub, and so the sketches they drew up for the pub were suggestions only.

Office dA’s first phase of design suggestions imagined the walls of Loker as a three-dimensional grid, with nooks that would vary in depth and would contain either memorabilia or bottles for the bar, according to an individual who worked on the project and did not want to be named because of close relations with project planners.

That plan was replaced with another design when students emphasized the desire for a less modern layout. This design included benches molded out of the pub’s wooden walls and furniture with smooth curves and surfaces, the individual said.

Office dA was interested in designing a pub “for students in 2010, 2015, [and] 2020,” said one of Office dA’s principal architects, Nader Tehrani.

Tehrani said that the firm wanted to express “the idea that students of today will become the history of tomorrow.”

Because of student interest in creating a pub that would reflect the style of architecture associated with the Faculty Club, Adams House, and Memorial Hall, there was “a philosophical difference” between Office dA and the members of the project, Tehrani said.

“We knew that as planners we had certain responsibilities, but as designers we would have different responsibilities,” he said.

Corker said that the modern design of Office dA’s initial sketches might have helped students “articulate that they wanted to go in a different direction” than the contemporary style suggested by Office dA.

“If we had a plan that was more middle-of-the road, students might not have been able to articulate themselves that clearly,” Corker said.

The plans for the new Loker were ultimately drawn up by MDS with a specific purpose in mind, he added.

“We made the decision early on that we were not going to try to create a student center,” he said. Instead, Corker hopes Loker will become “a convenient social space” that will bring students together from all parts of the campus to hang out rather than do problem sets.

Groups that previously met in Loker will move to new locations next year. The math question center that used to meet there during the week will operate from the forthcoming cafe in Lamont library, and student groups that held meetings in Loker’s coffeehouse area will instead be able to meet in renovated student group space in Hilles this fall, according to Corker.

But before the Queen’s Head will be available for beers or performances, it will need to be granted an operating license from the City of Cambridge. Corker said that he will begin work with the city and community on licensing this fall.

—Staff writer Brittney L. Moraski can be reached at bmoraski@fas.harvard.edu.