Construction of Milstein Hall

14Aug10

I’ve just posted the first of a series of informal “construction” videos showing how Paul Milstein Hall (OMA/Rem Koolhaas) at Cornell University is being built. The homepage for the anticipated video series is here. Ultimately, I hope to add additional short videos dealing in turn with substructure, superstructure, and enclosure systems.

The first video, “Getting Ready,” shows some of the preliminary site work and underpinning of adjacent buildings that occurred prior to the actual start of foundation work.

These videos are purely educational and informative in nature: after all, in spite of the numerous problems that this building has, some of which I have discussed elsewhere on this blog, it’s construction is actually quite interesting and in many ways unusual.

Given my prior and continuing criticism of the Milstein Hall design, I would like to acknowledge the support for this video project by the College of Architecture, Art & Planning (Dean Kent Kleinman) and the Construction Manager (Welliver McGuire). Of course, there is a contractual stipulation that some form of educational outreach must be provided along with the actual construction of the building — so my video project proposal, having little if any competition from other faculty initiatives, may have been viewed as a necessity to fulfill this contractual obligation. In any case, I appreciate the support I’ve been given. Disclaimer: Any views or opinions expressed on these videos are entirely my own (except where views or opinions are expressed directly by other people appearing in the videos), and are not necessarily the views of Cornell University, OMA, or any of the consultants, subcontractors, or construction managers involved in the construction of Paul Milstein Hall.

one life

10Jul10

I’ve just made a new video for a song I wrote in 2003 and recorded in 2008. Included is some Flip video footage from the 2009 World Series in which C.C. Sabathia waves off the curve ball and instead throws an unfortunate two-strike fast ball to Chase Utley — cheerleader “Rudy” Giuliani is watching from the stands and Tim McCarver is telling the world how difficult it is to get a two-strike fastball past Mr. Utley. I was lucky enough to film this perfect scene for my verse #3 lyric (”Catcher wants a breaking ball; pitcher’s waving off the call…”). The YouTube video for One Life (Is All You Get) is here, while the MP3 along with lyrics can be found here.

Rebuild Boardman Hall

07Jul10

The engineering library is to be closed at Cornell, since virtually all library activity in the college is electronic (see Chronicle article here) [UPDATE 8/13/10: two additional libraries at Cornell being consolidated with the ILR library; see Chronicle article here]. The Fine Arts Library is being largely dismantled and moved to Cornell’s library annex, but only in preparation for its rebirth in Rand Hall, a puzzling decision that I criticized in more detail here.

With the need for great quantities of prime library space increasingly in doubt, Cornell’s bad decision to demolish Boardman Hall in 1958 — in order to build the much larger Olin graduate library on the Arts Quad — should now be seriously revisited. This is a unique opportunity to begin planning to heal the wound that was inflicted on the Quad, an opportunity that may never present itself again.

Compare Boardman Hall (left images) with Olin Library (right images)

Compare Boardman Hall (left images) with Olin Library (right images)

Cornell’s planning and architectural decisions after Word War II have largely been disastrous; in fact, the architectural beauty of the campus is almost entirely due to the pre-WW II infrastructure that remains in place. The Arts Quad, in particular, is one of the greatest such assemblages of buildings in America, and would become absolutely spectacular if its southern edge could once again be defined by Boardman Hall, designed by the same architect, William Henry Miller, who designed Uris Library. Miller was an early graduate of Cornell’s architecture program in the 1870s.

Uris Library seen from the loggia of Boardman Hall

Uris Library seen from the loggia of Boardman Hall

Preserving and enhancing Cornell’s historic buildings and districts has apparently not been a priority. The recent expansion of housing adjacent to the neo-Gothic West Campus dormitories (originally Baker Court, 1916) and beyond Balch Hall in North Campus (1927) has done to these campus quadrants what Olin Library has done to the Arts Quad. It would be a remarkable and unique decision to take advantage of the imminent reduction in library space needs by actually doing something important for the long-term future of the campus.

The former Law Library in Boardman Hall

The former Law Library in Boardman Hall

Boardman Hall and Uris Library viewed from Sheldon Sundial

Boardman Hall and Uris Library viewed from Sheldon Sundial

[this composite image added 7/14/10; photo with Olin Library by J. Ochshorn]

Boardman Hall (left) vs. Olin Library (right)

Boardman Hall (left) vs. Olin Library (right)

Cornell’s Fine Arts Library

05Jul10

It is often necessary to anticipate future developments and trends in order to make recommendations for the renovation of building space or the construction of new space. Paul Milstein Hall at Cornell University (Rem Koolhaas, OMA architects) is an example of new construction resulting from an analysis of spatial needs. It is also an example of what can only be called a squandering of resources since these needs could have been met with far less expenditure of such resources.

Part of what didn’t make sense in the planning of Milstein Hall was its connection at the second-floor level to the Fine Arts Library in Sibley Hall. For security reasons, this connection would have been difficult to implement, and it is likely that the doors between Milstein and Sibley Halls would have remained locked and unusable. Cornell would not permit such issues to be considered in the planning for Milstein Hall, so that the decision to link Milstein to the library space always seemed dubious.

2nd-floor plan, Milstein Hall, Cornell University

2nd-floor plan, Milstein Hall, Cornell University

On March 24, 2010, I was called to the Dean’s office to discuss his plan to move the Fine Arts Library out of Sibley Hall, replacing it with studio space and faculty offices that are now in Rand Hall. The ultimate aim is to house the Fine Arts Library in Rand Hall. This appeared sensible for at least two reasons. First, it resolves the embarrassment of having Milstein Hall unable to connect with Sibley Hall: with design studios in Sibley and Milstein at the second-floor level, there would no longer be a security issue forcing the interconnecting doors to be locked. Second, Rand Hall appears to be a much stronger building than Sibley, which has always had problems actually supporting book stacks (unless they are spread out in an inefficient manner). Rand, on the other hand, could house books quite efficiently. In other words, Sibley has a wooden floor structure appropriate for studios, classrooms, and offices; while Rand has a steel and reinforced concrete floor system appropriate for heavier loads like libraries.

But Cornell, in its wisdom, did not plan for such a move, and will not pay for it. Apparently, the only way to accomplish this is to use money already being spent by the college to rent space on Esty Street (downtown Ithaca). By implementing an elaborate phasing plan — in which Esty St. studios are moved to Rand Hall’s first floor, displacing faculty offices which are moved into the Fine Arts Library space, displacing books which are moved either into more dense stack areas under the dome, or into the library’s annex — it seems possible to take the Esty St. rent and apply it to the limited (and temporary) renovation of Sibley and Rand Hall as described above. Ultimately, fund-raising would need to occur so that the entire Fine Arts Library (or some portion thereof that is not housed in the annex) could be moved to a suitable home in Rand Hall, with faculty offices moved again (this time to the third floor of Sibley Hall), and studios moved from Rand Hall into Sibley’s second floor as well as into the soon-to-be-completed Milstein Hall.

But this plan raises another question about the future of libraries. When I talked to Dean Kleinman in March 2010, I suggested that the general strategy of reclaiming Sibley for studios and offices seemed to make much sense, especially since the Fine Arts Library could never logically connect directly to Milstein Hall from its current location in Sibley Hall. However, I made the point that, given the rapidly fading importance of physical books in academic life, it might be wise to reconsider whether fund-raising for a new library home in Rand Hall was an appropriate use of resources. Increasingly, books and journals are accessed electronically; this trend is clearly accelerating, especially with devices like Kindles and iPads becoming available in recent years. Many academic books and journals are already available online as “electronic resources” through Cornell’s library system.

A recent article in the Cornell Chronicle dated June 29, 2010 confirms that Cornell’s engineering library at Carpenter Hall is being dismantled effective next year, since it was discovered that “approximately 99 percent of the use of the collection consists of online materials.” [UPDATE 8/13/10: two additional libraries at Cornell are being "re-imagined": see Chronicle article here.] In fact, what stands between a fully digitized world of knowledge and the ability to gain access to that knowledge is neither technology nor resources per se, but rather an unholy alliance of forces intent on preserving the infrastructure of what is called intellectual property so that the unfettered diffusion of knowledge can continue to be held hostage to the demands of copyright owners.

Here we see before us a classic instance of the relations of production (including the legal infrastructure defining intellectual property) falling far behind the actual means of production (including the digitization of what were previously physical books and journals). It can already be seen how these relations of production are changing in response to the developing reality of the Internet. See, for example, Google vs. Viacom.

Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art & Planning’s Fine Arts Library is one of the nation’s best. Implicit in Dean Kleinman’s plan to create a new mausoleum for the Fine Arts Library’s physical collection is an attempt to preserve this competitive advantage by renovating new space for the collection. But in an age when physical collections of books will have little utility, except as objects admired in book museums, this appears to be another questionable space-allocation decision and points to the past rather than the future. Instead, Cornell should be working to accelerate the digitization of its (and all other) collections, and to participate in movements aiming for the unfettered distribution of all scholarly works in open-access networks.

so long

06Jun10

This is my first recording of an old song that was left unfinished for many years. I had only an idea for the beginning of the first verse and for the chorus, probably about 25 years ago, but never got around to finishing it until now. View the lyrics and production notes, or download an MP3 version, here. TheĀ  YouTube video is a version of the song performed on my imaginary Spring 2010 “Don’t quit your day job” tour. Want a dynamic, transcribable chord chart for the song? It’s here.

hole in floor

30Apr10

You’d think it would easy to put a hole in a floor of a building, but it isn’t. The building code (here I’m talking about the International Building Code, or IBC, latest 2009 version) is organized so that code enforcement people can check whether plans for buildings are in compliance with the code, rather than being organized so that architects can figure out what is or is not possible.

image of hole in floor

image of hole in floor

I made a calculator to help designers figure out whether their proposed holes, connecting two or more floors in a building, are in compliance with the 2009 IBC (similar to earlier versions). I also provide a more detailed discussion of the logic behind making such holes, with an invitation for those more expert than myself to clarify some puzzling code issues.

Anyone

21Mar10

This new MP3 recording and live video of my song, Anyone, is a milestone of sorts: it represents the final recording of all the songs that I wrote in the late 1970s and early 1980s after graduating from college, moving to NYC, and playing with the band, Rollo. Five additional songs that I wrote during this time period were actually recorded in the 1980s for Rollo’s Don’t Look CD, and I don’t intend to record those songs again now.

There are one or two other songs that I wrote in my more distant past (high school, to be precise), but I haven’t decided whether to record them. So this means that any new recordings will be either new compositions, old favorite — unrecorded — Rollo songs written by Dan Smullyan in the 1970s and 1980s, or maybe some new Rollo collaborations.

adaptation

14Mar10

I wrote this song in 2003 after seeing the movie, Adaptation (directed by Spike Jonze, screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, with Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, and others) and seeing some potential in doing a live musical performance of a song that is being written during the performance itself (an idea inspired by the movie). So the video of my song, Adaptation, is a re-creation of my actual performance of the song for the first time at the ABC Cafe open mic in Ithaca, NY on August 19, 2003. The ABC Cafe recently closed; I made the video by screen-capturing an image from a YouTube video of Evan D Williams performing at the ABC Cafe in 2007, carefully extracting Evan and his band from the image (no one was hurt in the process), and then adding in my performance — shot at home with my low-resolution Flip Camcorder based on a recording I made using GarageBand (both the recording and video made in March 2010). I also filmed myself as the “audience” for the song, again inspired by Nicolas Cage playing both Charlie and brother Donald Kaufman in the movie.

You can also download or listen to an MP3 version of the song, and view lyrics and technical notes.

after all

03Jan10

After All was one of the first songs I wrote, in 1978, consisting of 2 verses with an instrumental break. In 2003, I added a bridge and a third verse. The song was recorded on GarageBand software; a YouTube video was shot using the built-in camera on my iMac. Also available is a downloadable MP3 and lyrics.

squints on a triple

01Jan10

I finally got around to making a YouTube video for Squints on a Triple, a song I wrote and recorded in 2008 based on a true story concerning a game of Scrabble played with daughter Jennie.

At the same time, I just discovered that my recording of Squints was the winner of the 2008 BoardGameGeek.com contest for real songs that reference actual boardgames in their titles or lyrics.




 

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