Tagged: Mirror Lake

A group working to guide how the new Mirror Lake should look and function is closer to finishing their work.

An advisory council made up of faculty, students and staff held two meetings in the last two months to offer input on a new look for the
iconic landmark.

“What I’m excited about is this is a model for how a more natural landscape, a sustainable landscape, could be developed on campus,” said advisory council member Daniel Struve, professor emeritus of horticulture.

The effort to restore a nearly 100-year-old building and bring it into the modern age requires a lot of care and more than a little respect for history. Work is underway to do just that at Pomerene Hall on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.

The construction at Pomerene and neighboring Oxley Hall is part of the Mirror Lake District renovation project. The goal is to take part of campus history and restore it rather than start over.

A lecture about physics is underway at Browning Amphitheater as a class tests water samples along a wetland barrier. Students take notes on iPads of new trees and plant growth in the shadow of Oxley Hall. It’s not the Mirror Lake District of today, but it might be the one of tomorrow.

This week, students, staff and faculty discussed how this historic area could serve as a classroom and laboratory of the future. Two workshops at The Ohio State University Faculty Club focused on how the new Mirror Lake area could be used for academic purposes.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio State University is announcing a restoration of historic Mirror Lake and the surrounding district focusing on safety and sustainability.

In November 2013, the university began exploring ways to make the lake more sustainable. A series of modifications over many decades had resulted in a body of water that was both polluted and leaking, requiring consistent maintenance and creating thousands of gallons of waste water daily.