Category Archives: Milstein-Rand-Sibley Hall

Adventures in Building Bad, Episode 5: Column misalignment in E. Sibley Hall

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This latest 90-second video in the “Adventures in Building Bad” series discusses the implications of column misalignment in E. Sibley Hall at Cornell University. After making the video, which is embedded below, I discovered a photo which seems to show that the column misalignment preceded the 2014 renovation of the third floor.

E. Sibley Hall, third floor, Aug. 21. 2013: inward sloping of the columns is visible in this photo.

So the origin of the problem, it seems to me, is probably either the original removal of attic joists to insert a skylight, or the underpinning of E. Sibley Hall around 2010 during the construction of adjacent Milstein Hall.

Find links to all my episodes here.

Adventures in Building Bad, Episode 3: Differential movement shatters guardrail

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Here, I look at the case of a glass guardrail, designed to span over two very different wall types—a basement wall and a retaining wall. And yes, the retaining wall moved, as a result of soil pressure, and the glass guard shattered. Of equal concern is that the repair doesn’t seem to have properly addresses the problem, so the trim at the top of the guard keeps popping up as the glass pushes against it.

Here are links to all the videos in this series.

Adventures in Building Bad: First episode!

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I’ve decided to create a short-form web series of 90-second videos, released weekly on Wednesdays at 11:00 AM, called “Adventures in Building Bad.” The first episode was published today, and it concerns a peculiar instance of efflorescence in Milstein Hall, the flagship building designed by Rem Koolhaas/OMA for the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell.

There’s efflorescence all over Milstein Hall, the result of bad detailing which has allowed rainwater to penetrate into the concrete. But the instance of efflorescence described in this video, at the entrance to the critique room, has no obvious connection to rainwater. Are sprinkler pipes that are embedded in the concrete dome leaking?

The web series will appear in YouTube (where the embedded video lives) as well as Instagram and TikTok.

Milstein Hall’s exit signs

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I recently got a question on Bluesky from “Mike – Towards a Metric America!” asking about exit signs in the Crit Room in Milstein Hall at Cornell University, the architecture building designed by OMA.

Now I devoted an entire chapter in my book about OMA’s Milstein Hall to problems with fire safety and egress, but I didn’t say anything about exit signs. So, to answer Mike’s question about whether there was an exit sign for the stair leading up from the Crit Room, I walked over to Milstein Hall this morning to see what I could find, and created this video.

Check out my free open-access book about OMA’s Milstein Hall (and also my book-launch music video)!

Update (June 7, 2026): I just posted another video about exit sign problems in E. Sibley Hall at Cornell.

OMA’s Milstein Hall: skateboards and broken bubbles

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From my book, OMA’s Milstein Hall: “Just as abstract programmatic adjacencies are confused with circulation systems in the design of Milstein Hall, there is also an implicit conflation of a type of performative athletic movement—whether featuring trained dancers, ‘free runners,’ or skateboarders—with the type of movement in and around buildings that constitutes useful circulation.”

You can read my free, open-access versions of OMA’s Milstein Hall and Building Bad on the web, or download free PDFs.

Can we talk about urinals?

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I criticize the urinals in OMA’s Milstein Hall (at Cornell University) in my book of the same name. The fixtures selected, presumably to match the stainless steel serpentine partitions separating the men’s and women’s rooms, are Willoughby UF-1438 special-order stainless steel single person floor mounted stall urinals, intended mainly “for use in security environments” — i.e., correctional facilities (fig. 1).

Stainless steel urinal in Milstein Hall

Fig. 1. Stainless steel urinal in Milstein Hall

They are embedded in the concrete floor slab which is problematic for at least two reasons: first, because it violates the principle of “shearing layers” whereby things that need to change or be replaced periodically should not be embedded in things (like a structural floor slab) that are intended to last for the life of the building; and second, because the concrete floor is in such bad shape that it violates the New York State Building Code requirement that “floor finish materials shall have a smooth, hard, nonabsorbent surface.” (ICC, “1209.2.1 Floors and Wall Bases,” in the 2020 New York State Building Code.)

These prison-grade urinals are not only dysfunctional in this academic context, but are also incredibly expensive — well over $1,000.00 each. And while it’s hard these days to find a functional urinal as beautiful as the so-called readymade that Duchamp tried to exhibit in 1917 (fig. 2a), except perhaps on eBay (fig. 2b), functional high-efficiency urinals can be found for well under $200 (fig. 2c).

Three images: (a) Duchamp's 'Fountain' (photo by Steiglitz); (b) Kohler urinal from the 1950s; and (c) Contemporary American Standard urinal.

Fig. 2. (a) Duchamp’s 1917 “Fountain” (photo by Stieglitz); (b) Kohler urinal from the 1950s; and (c) Contemporary American Standard urinal.

It is possible, at least for individuals whose gender identity aligns with the use of so-called men’s rooms, to see some beautiful urinals at Cornell. But to do this, you need to go to the basement of Barton Hall, which was built in 1917, about the same time as Duchamp’s readymade. I can’t say for sure if these urinals date from the building’s opening, or from some mid-twentieth-century renovation, but their similarity to Duchamp’s “Mutt” makes a trip to Barton Hall well worth the effort (fig. 3).

Urinals in the basement of Barton Hall, Cornell University

Fig. 3. Urinals in the basement of Barton Hall, Cornell University

Book presentation at AAP Launchpad event

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I presented my latest book, OMA’s Milstein Hall, at Cornell AAP’s joint book launch event, called Launchpad, on April 17, 2024, at 5:30 PM. Details here. Because I was in Madrid for the 2024 ASHRAE International Building Decarbonization Conference, my presentation consisted of a 7-minute music video. I was thinking of adding something like, “Be there. Will be wild!,” but will resist the temptation. Bad taste.

The video was released on YouTube at the same time as the book launch event. Why not subscribe to my YouTube channel to get notices of such things!

Adding insult to injury: Cornell deletes Rand Hall egress information

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I’ve written about the many egregious fire safety violations in Rand Hall’s Mui Ho Fine Arts Library at Cornell, e.g., an article describing my “Appeal regarding building code violations in Cornell’s Fine Arts Library.”

So it’s entirely fitting that the college’s Spring 2024 events postcard would feature an image of the Rand roof deck with all egress information Photoshopped away!

Free open-access books on architecture

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All three of my books are now available in free, open-access, digital versions — as well as low-cost paperback editions.

Read on the web, download free ePubs or PDFs, or buy a low-cost paperback:

The path to open-access wasn’t particularly easy. In the case of Structural Elements, I started with Elsevier (publisher of the first hardcover edition), then found a less onerous publisher (Common Ground) for a paperback second edition, and then took control myself for the third edition by self-publishing an inexpensive paperback ($19.95) and creating a free web version and PDF.

For OMA’s Milstein Hall, I had some preliminary conversations with the publisher, Routledge, but they seemed reluctant to publish a book critical of OMA without some sort of “reassurance” from OMA, which—naturally—wasn’t forthcoming. So I self-published the book ($19.95), also providing a free web version as well as free ePub and PDF versions.

My book, Building Bad, was initially published by Lund Humphries in 2021. I had some professional development funds in my Cornell account, partly from my status as professor emeritus at Cornell, and partly from my work as Speaker of the Cornell University Faculty Senate, and asked Lund Humphries if they would consider allowing me to create an open-access (free) version, with a subvention from these available funds. Apparently, they had no experience with such things, but eventually decided to place their hardcover edition “out of print,” disable their eBook edition as well, and revert all publishing rights back to me, for a modest sum of money. This allowed me to create a free web version as well as a free ePub, a free PDF, and a low-cost paperback version (only $14.95).

OMA’s Milstein Hall: A Case Study of Architectural Failure

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I’ve written a new a book about architectural failure. In addition to some general observations and an occasional digression, the heart of the book is a rather detailed examination of dysfunction, inflexibility, fire hazard, nonstructural failure, and unsustainable design in Milstein Hall at Cornell University, the flagship building designed by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) for Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning. See my website to read the 412-page book for free (on the web, or as a free pdf or ePub) or click on the “Amazon” link to buy an inexpensive paperback version ($19.95).

There are 26 chapters in the book organized into four parts—with each part corresponding to one category of architectural failure:

  • Part I (Dysfunction and Inflexibility) includes detailed discussions of function, flexibility, privacy, lighting, acoustics, circulation, orientation, and access.
  • Part II (Nonstructural Failure) offers an examination of thermal control, rainwater control, and sloppy, dysfunctional, and dangerous details in Milstein Hall.
  • Part III (Fire Hazard) discusses the many ways in which Milstein Hall contravenes normative fire safety standards.
  • Part IV (Unsustainable Design) is in equal part a critique of Milstein Hall’s sustainability and the cynical use of the LEED Reference Guide as validation for Milstein Hall’s “green” credentials.

Writing and researching my monograph, Building Bad: How Architectural Utility is Constrained by Politics and Damaged by Expression (Lund Humphries, 2021), provided a useful theoretical base for the present work, which is, in effect, a case study in “building bad.” The competition driving dysfunctional modes of expression and the political calculations that effectively constrain durability and safety—both of which increase the probability of building failure—are theorized in Building Bad. And this theory applies to most avant-garde architecture, including the architecture of Milstein Hall. The present book does not rehash the underlying theoretical arguments for nonstructural failure that appeared in Building Bad; instead, it examines what such failure looks like in a single building—as a case study.