Rutherford College, Kent
| Rutherford College | |
|---|---|
| University | University of Kent |
| Established | 1966 |
| Named for | Ernest Rutherford |
| Master | Dr Peter Klappa |
| Website | www.kent.ac.uk |
Rutherford College is the second oldest college of the University of Kent. It is located on the university's Canterbury campus and was established in 1966.
The college is named after Ernest Rutherford, the physicist and Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry. As Rutherford achieved fame in both Physics and Chemistry, it was felt that he was a particularly appropriate namesake given the University's original desire to break down the boundaries between disciplines. Rutherford was also an alumnus of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
The basic design of the college is to a large extent a mirror of Eliot College, and was inspired by Louis Kahn's design for a residential block at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. The need to have three hundred study-bedrooms and several large areas for distinctive use, such as teaching, a common room and a dining hall plus kitchens, led to the adoption of a section design with the college divided into several square blocks, each containing a distinctive interior space with study bedrooms along all four walls. The Bryn Mawr residential block has three squares in a row, but faced with the need for an additional square for each college, it was decided to arrange the squares in a cruciform layout.
Due to the need to have the first two colleges built early, Rutherford was designed at the same time as Eliot and so consequently the design could not be adapted to take into account problems encountered with Eliot. Due to the contours of the hill on which the campus is built, the two colleges are not exactly alike and in later years annexe extensions and alterations were to further the differences.
As originally designed the college was poorly equipped for access by the mobility impaired and later adaptations have included the installation a lift and the opening up of some study bedroom corridors, now adapted into office space for academic departments, to provide a level free route through the college.
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