Here’s an interactive look at six ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ places now and when they were under construction between 1998 and 2010.

Lake Andrews

The beloved Puddle’s massive makeover in 1998 began with its complete draining. The restoration included creation of the Keigwin Amphitheater and Burgoyne Lakeside Walk.

Alumni Walk

In one fell swoop between mid-2006 and early 2008, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ created Alumni Walk, a new dining Commons, and a residence hall at 280 College Street.

Alumni Walk passes in front of Lane Hall and behind Parker, Hathorn, Dana, and Hedge halls. Besides replacing the former campus road and parking area once there, it brings architectural coherence to a maturing area of campus.

Commons

By September 2007, construction on Commons and Alumni Walk were heading into the home stretch.

280 College Street

Located on the field between Rand Hall and Mountain Avenue, the residence at 280 College St. includes a lofty signature space, Frank’s Lounge.

Roger Williams Hall and Hedge Hall

In 2010, former residence halls Roger Williams (1895) and Hedge (1890) were revamped and turned into academic buildings.

Hedge was a chemistry building until 1965, when it turned over its science role to Dana Chemistry Hall.

It isn’t the prettiest wrapping job you’ll see this time of year.

But when the plastic sheeting around the Hedge Hall addition does come off, probably in January, you can expect a fine present indeed: neat courses of brick and granite that masons are laying now.

The plastic, explains project manager Paul Farnsworth, retains the warmth that a propane space heater is pumping into the building. The mortar that sticks bricks together develops its strength from a chemical reaction, and that reaction doesn’t happen if the temperature drops below freezing.

The workers are probably OK with the heat, too. There are two big heaters on the site, one feeding Hedge and the other Roger Williams Hall — that one has a plywood cover so workers won’t do damage when they toss down old roof slates. The heat is piped into the buildings from outside so the heaters won’t take up valuable floor space inside.

Another development at Hedge is taking place in plain sight, as roofers are laying the slates atop the other layers of roofing. Campus Construction Update, ever the connoisseur in construction matters, was pleased to see slate going on rather than asphalt shingles or the doubled-over trash bags that we use at home.

It was a simple matter of the price being right, says Farnsworth. “It was an alternate during bidding, and we could afford it. We’re all happy.”

Taking place in pane sight is the window installation at Hedge. Aside from a few openings that will be left vacant to pass building materials through, that job should be done by the week of Dec. 6 with the placement of the large arched windows that are such a distinguishing feature of the building.

And inside Hedge, Farnsworth says, “things are happening fast.”

On the second story, floor sheathing is down, and “they’re going to town with wall studs. On the first floor, the sheathing should be finished by Dec. 4 and then they’ll start with those walls.” On the third floor, carpenters are putting up the wood that will hold up the ceiling, and then the floor and wall work can start.

“Wherever they’ve framed the bathrooms out, the plumbers are right behind,” he adds. “They’ve put in all the carriers — the heavy cast-iron things that hold the fixtures in the wall. And the electricians have started to rough in outlets at the walls.”

The Hedge-Roger Williams project is approaching the greatest diversity of building trades at work, from carpenters to electricians to plumbers to roofers. Farnsworth estimates that, on the busiest days, there are 60 workers on the site.

Across the lot at Roger Bill, the focus is still the roof, as workers have begun attaching wooden rafters to that dramatic steel frame. Doing the rafters and sheathing them will take about four weeks if all goes well. Also on high, the slates are being stripped from the section of the old roof that was retained, on the Alumni Walk end of the building.

In the meantime, the nice shiny metal wall studs on the Bill’s addition will soon be hidden behind a layer of yellow exterior sheathing that’s going up now. That yellow material will then be concealed by a blue vapor barrier, which in turn will be covered with pink insulation. Pastelicious!

Also pending at the Bill is the rebuilding of the brick porch on the side facing Hedge — a project that Farnsworth has been dangling in front of Campus Construction Update for months, like doughnuts before Homer Simpson. A hallmark feature of the building, the porch had deteriorated past the point where mere repointing would put it right, and will be completely redone.

Finally, watch for a new electrical transformer to replace the unit next to the Bill. The replacement, leased from Central Maine Power, will feed both buildings. “At the same time, we’ll be pulling in the feeder cables,” Farnsworth says. “So, hopefully by the end of next week, we’ll be on the new electrical service.”

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions, reminiscences and comments about campus improvements. Please e-mail staff writer Doug Hubley, stating “Construction Update” in the subject line.

This overhead view of a dumpster shows wood that has been stripped out of Roger Williams Hall in preparation for its renovation. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Nails and nails.

Nails poking out of scrap wood that used to hold together the walls within Roger Williams Hall. Nails lying pointedly in wait for a soft-soled shoe. Bent nails scattered on the floor in the wake of a construction worker who, walking back and forth with a crowbar, yanks nails out of the floorboards, one after the next, over and over.

And here we’d been thinking that it would be fun to gut a building. But not for the nail-pulling guy.

What happens to all those nails? We asked Paul Farnsworth, project manager for the renovation of Hedge and Roger Williams halls.

Pulling nails out of a Roger Williams Hall floor in May 2010. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

General contractor Wright-Ryan Construction separates its waste stream, he replied, and the nail metal is recycled. “We ask for that in our specifications, but that’s a standard procedure for Wright-Ryan.”

Included in the waste recovery are nails still embedded in wood that has been ripped out of the two buildings and flung out the windows into trash containers for the past two months. When the wood is ground up for use as biomass fuel, magnets extract the metal for reuse.

We encountered the nail-pulling guy and other workers during a May 18 photo tour of Hedge and Bill. The many other impressive sights included a man busting up concrete in Hedge’s basement with a jackhammer mounted on a compact tractor.

But what really awed Campus Construction Update was two mountains of broken wood — well, one mountain and one foothill — on the fourth floor of Roger Bill. These random scrap heaps of wood (and nails!) were once the walls that you pinned your Betty Grable or Jimi Hendrix pictures on, and that you pounded against when the noise from next door was cutting into precious sleep.

Now the remnants of these walls are headed for an open window and the trash container waiting below. One difference from the old days, Farnsworth pointed out, is that a lot more wood goes into a bin now than previously.

If these walls could talk, they’d say “ouch”: Scrap wood in a heap during the gutting of Roger Williams Hall. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

“They get charged by the number of containers,” he explained, “so they’re very good at stacking it to get the most out of each load.” That is, someone climbs into the bin and moves the wood around.

Speaking of the Bill’s windows, they too will be pretty much gone by the week of May 24. As with Hedge, the intact units will be sold by a salvage broker for reuse.

Otherwise at the Bill, the concrete crew will soon pour footers for the steel skeleton and pour one-sided walls to reinforce what’s there now. Excavators will trench around the foundation for drainage and dampproofing work similar to what’s been done at Hedge.

In Hedge’s basement, most of the concrete has been poured. A major exception is the pit for the new elevator. That’ll require a rigging job that Campus Construction Update is eager to see.

Workers will run steel beams horizontally through holes cut in a concrete wall. Supported at the ends, that steel will take the weight that the wall is now bearing — holding the building up, you see — and then the wall section underneath the steel will be cut away so the pit can be built. Then the wall will be replaced.

Up in the light of day, workers today were filling in the trench around the Historic Quad side of Hedge. Once that’s done, workers can erect staging for the masons who will repoint some brickwork.

An upper-level view outward from glass-free Hedge Hall. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Higher up still, the roof removal we talked about the other week is still pending. With recycling on our mind (along with nails), we asked if the roof slates could be reclaimed or reused.

“Although slate is rock, it doesn’t have an unlimited life,” Farnsworth said. “Are there pieces in there you could reuse? Likely, but by the time you’ve handled it 50,000 times, you don’t come out ahead.”

Notes from underground: The new gas line between Hedge and Ladd Library was laid late last week. That line needed rerouting because the addition to Hedge will be built over its old course, next to Alumni Walk. For a similar reason, an old clay sewer pipe on the same side of Hedge will be replaced next week, since it won’t be too accessible underneath the expanded building.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments, unless they’re mean, about the Hedge-Roger Williams renovation project. Please e-mail staff writer Doug Hubley at this E-mail, stating “Construction Update” in the subject line.