The University of Oregon’s famous Humpy Lumpy Lawn has transformed into a busy (and flat) construction site.
The university is tearing down both Hamilton and Walton residence halls to build three new dorms that will have over 1,800 beds. Together, Hamilton and Walton currently have 1,400 beds.
Though the well-loved lawn is gone, a new residence hall and park space will come to the university.
The lawn will replace the 60-year-old dorm once the new hall is built and will extend from the new dorm all the way to East 13th Street. This extra space will allow the lawn to be used more functionally than Humpy Lumpy had been, said Michael Griffel, assistant vice president and director of student services and enrollment management.
“There will be a fairly large amount of open space for recreation as well as for events,” Griffel said. “So Humpy Lumpy, like anything that’s there, you use it and you become nostalgic, but it wasn’t exceptionally functional in some ways.”
Some of the preliminary ideas in the works include what Griffel called a “fun forest” that would consist of posts for slacklines and hammocks and a large, flat circle for hosting large events.
“There will be some humps and lumps as a nod to the past,” Griffel said.
A map of the project shows that the north end of the lawn will also have a large, empty, flat area. Griffel said that this will be a space set aside for future construction.
“It’s designed so that there could be a new building there. It could really be anything. Totally up to what the university and campus planning decides, it’s not been designated,” Griffel said. “It could be something that could go in in the next few years or it could be something in 50 or 60 years. There’s no plans for it other than it’s designated as a place you could build.”
However, as the University of Oregon looks to the future, its students are still remembering the recent past. Some students who only one term ago walked through the Humpy Lumpy Lawn every morning said they are sad to see it go, and are worried about the cost.
One of these students is Ella Wrather, a freshman at UO.
“I’d rather that it had stayed. Obviously I can’t understand the demand for housing and stuff here but normally it impacts me because I live at GSH so I walk around it,” Wrather said. “But also it’s just so much construction and then with Hayward and everything they’re just building a lot.”
Another student, Lilah Silberman, a freshman Human Physiology major, said she’s worried about the cost of building these dorms.
“I don’t like it. They cut down all the really pretty trees around campus and I think that kinda sucks,” Silberman said. “And I think they’re building really nice dorms that aren’t going to necessarily be affordable.”
Silberman also lives in Justice Bean Hall, where the constant construction has been a disruption from morning to night.
“The construction is so annoying,” Silberman said. “It wakes me up every morning and I can’t fall asleep because I can hear it and it vibrates the building. It’s very obnoxious.”
The new residence hall is scheduled to be finished in August 2021, and Hamilton will be demolished in summer of 2023.
