But not my point.
There're some wrinkles to iron out. The building is freezing. My wife has accused me of being half penguin because of my love for low temperatures, and yet, I have stepped outside to warm up. And there's new windows being added in places there weren't, and a fume hood in a lab that doesn't need it. All sorts of new building things.
Oh yeah, and there're smoke detectors in the machine shop. Many of them. One hangs right over the lathe. One uses cutting oil when operating the lathe, and the cutting oil sometimes smokes.
The fire alarms in the building are very loud.
And students don't start work in the shop until this week.
I expect this to be an interesting week.
I've lived through all that and you will too. Remember the most important thing: IT"S A NEW BUILDING! Which means, if you haven't already heard, don't make a single scratch, spill, scrape or dent in anything until the big wigs get a tour.
ReplyDeleteAs for the extra hood, that's great. Get as many bells and whistles installed now as possible. Once the administration realizes how hight the building's operating costs are, you'll never get anything added later.
Your building maintenance people sound like mine. They remind me of the people in the movie "Caddyshack," who ran the golf course.
ReplyDeleteFrom my husband, who works in facilities design a a community college:
ReplyDeletePlease be aware of the differences between what the Architect designs, what the Building Code requires and even the difference between the
Facilities staff who design the building vs. those that take care of it. Many times the guys who maintain a building don't get any say in its design.
We had a chemistry lab with smoke detectors because that's what was required at the time. Never mind that anytime someone burned something down on a crucible the whole complex was dumped outside.
That was what the code called for, so the architect put it in, and that's what they built and then EVERYONE deals with it, including the facilities guys who wonder what idiot put a smoke detector above the lathe.
Sometimes the builders can outsmart the architects, though. In a previous life I worked closely with department chairs regarding room use. A new building was coming online, but one particular classroom was configured in such a way that there was no room on any wall for a chalk/white board because of windows. A subcontractor that overheard the rant had a solution: He couldn't alter the architect's "aesthetic vision" of the building by removing a window (that afforded a lovely ground-level view of an electrical transformer) so he left the window in place but drywalled over it on the inside. He painted the back of the drywall black so from the outside it looked like a room with the lights off. Presto! A solid wall with corner-to-corner chalk/white board.
ReplyDeleteNo one will ever try to look in the window because a) the aforementioned transformer is right in front of it, b) to hide the transformer the grounds people planted bushes around it, c) it is on a slightly elevated hill 75 yards from the nearest sidewalk and at least 100 yards from any entrance to the building so it's almost impossible to get close to it, and d) the blinds are permanently "closed" so there's nothing to see anyway.
I refer to it as the "Window to Nowhere."
There was a science building at my undergrad which was rumored to be a construction mistake in which the architect was building two buildings for two universities and sent half the plans for one and half the plans to the other. It looks fine on the outside, but the hallways make several... shall we say... unnatural changes of direction.
ReplyDeleteMy undergrad school has 2 campuses, one in New Mexico, one in Maryland -- very different climates. The rumor always was that our (Maryland) Lab building was designed for the other campus, hence all the heat-deflection, but the snow/ice/slush accumulates all over it. I haven't been to the other campus to see if they have a brick colonial-style building where they roast to death?
ReplyDelete@April: Very likely!
ReplyDeleteOUr building was recently refurbished and repainted. As someone who does her own painting at home, I do sympathize with the desire to keep nice clean paint nice looking, and I am happy not posting anything on the walls.
However, the requirement that we ALSO not post anything on our (laminate) doors is ridiculous. I have to post office hours and other official information.
Despite the regulation about the walls, one can put up a framed picture. So I found one a friend was throwing out, carefully hung it according to regulations, and post everything on that. Take that, building manager.
New buildings are great, until they start falling apart. I had an ancient lab in grad school. Everything worked, but it wasn't so pretty.
ReplyDeleteI have a rocking new lab now, cosmetically state of the art. I spend half the time sending in repair requests.
Sometimes I wonder if the architect ever actually thinks about what they put on those nifty drawings. I know of a really spiffy Chemistry Building at Very Large Uni with shining stainless steel emergency showers outside of every lab in all the hallways. Not one drain near any of them.
ReplyDeleteThen there are the loading docks. Eventually rather large trucks will have to disgorge their load SOMEWHERE. Down a meandering back alley where it takes a sharp turn before you get to back up to the least possible space is not exactly convenient.
I tend to encourage the lowly and underpaid minions to do their damnedest to put a dent in the place as often as possible. I have NO IDEA how that hole got there. Once the new wears off and we have successfully rearranged or replaced things then we have a workable space.
Kudos to the builder that created the Window to Nowhere.