Paul Milstein Hall

[Trotsky]

What's the reception around campus to the design?  Here are the animations.

[Roy 82]

I don't know about the reception around campus but I found that large overhang to be a bit harsh and claustrophobia inducing. I feel trapped underneath it. It would make an excellent toll plaza.

But I am most concerned about the ghostlike zombies that are apparently running around campus.::scared::

[Luke 05]

Seems to me that with the E-W opening it will create quite the wind tunnel effect.

[RichH]

Seems to me that with the E-W opening it will create quite the wind tunnel effect.

Similar to the Clark Hall tunnel, which is now covered up by the new physical sciences building.

[billhoward]

The asphalt will never be smoother, the pavement markers brigher than in the animation. The animation makes you want to grab a controller, speed up the animation, and punt the pedestrians. In addition to the wind effect under the overhang, perhaps it will collect debris, seem dark and musty, and be ill-lit much of the time.  I wish the overhang continued all the way to the gorge. Or there was a smaller, mirror image building on the gorge side with its own overhang and netting and triple-sealed windows (regardless of there being a building in the way already).  

If this gives Architecture more space and it benefits Cornell and students, then, good! It's impossible to design an architecture building without every prof thinking he could do better.

[ajh258]

Honestly, it doesn't look that bad. Modern school of architecture values function and efficiency, thus the cantilever is a popular method of creating more space without setting more foundation. However, I wish the upper floor looks less rectangular. In any case, that building will be much better than the air conditioning-less Rand.

[Scersk '97]

I feel sorry for the Fine Arts Library, which has lost much natural light and any view.  The building just created a bunch of interior rooms in Sibley out of what used to be rooms with nice windows and light.  Ummm, atrium and skylights?

I have the feeling that nobody, I mean nobody, will ever get out on the green roof.  Yet, somebody might: better put up a fence.

The cantilever is a bit ridiculous, but that little extra bit that pokes around the side of Sibley is even more so.  It screams, as I've said before, "Look at me!  I got my building on the landmarked Arts Quad!  Hahhah!"

Think about how much money is being spent to create a two-level underground parking structure.  Well, maybe don't think too hard about it.  What we continue to do in our society at the behest of our four-wheeled masters.

And what's with the fussily ornamental ceiling tiles?  Were they trying to be ironic?  As someone who happens to like the period of architectural history in which those tiles would have been appropriate, I find it kind of insulting.  If you're going to modernist, and Milstein is an overwhelmingly modernist building (and, therefore, quite old-fashioned itself), be serious about it and do it well.  Don't be cute.

Maybe the interior spaces will impress.  More likely, they'll just be antiseptic, functionless, and anxiety-producing.  Seriously, who needs a fishbowl for a lecture hall?

[billhoward]

Parking is an endangered species at Cornell. The campus has enough trees, just not in the right places.

[Scersk '97]

Parking is as endangered as it should be; universities should be for walkers and cyclists.

There's always A Lot and the bus.  I may be off base, but I doubt that it's in faculty contracts that they have an inalienable right to be able to waddle out of their cars and be in their offices in < 5 min.

[Rosey]

Parking is as endangered as it should be; universities should be for walkers and cyclists.

Thank you for advocating forcing your preferences on other people, because what this world really needs is more busybodies telling other people how to live their lives.  And I say this as someone who cycles to work every day.

If you want to bike or walk around campus, go ahead: there's nothing stopping you.  I did it for 3 years before I brought a car to campus, and even then I pretty much used the car only to get to Wegmans.  But why make it inordinately difficult for those who choose to drive?  What makes your preference special, and theirs evil enough to be worthy of creeping prohibition?

[Scersk '97]

Parking is as endangered as it should be; universities should be for walkers and cyclists.

Thank you for advocating forcing your preferences on other people, because what this world really needs is more busybodies telling other people how to live their lives.  And I say this as someone who cycles to work every day.

If you want to bike or walk around campus, go ahead: there's nothing stopping you.  I did it for 3 years before I brought a car to campus, and even then I pretty much used the car only to get to Wegmans.  But why make it inordinately difficult for those who choose to drive?  What makes your preference special, and theirs evil enough to be worthy of creeping prohibition?

Why should we make it easy for people to drive?  You know, there are external costs to driving for other users of the transportation network that are not born fully by the drivers.  What about my lungs and my safety on my bike?  What about the greater distances (and ugly distances) I have to walk to get through or around the lots?  Sure, none of these things are stopping me, but they are raising the "cost."  Can't I just turn around and say to you, "All those cars and parking lots are making it inordinately difficult for those who choose to walk or bike"?

Now, Kyle, don't get too upset.  I'm not really a prohibitionist.  I care mostly about the cost. They're spending an inordinate amount of money to build a few spaces, I assure you.  Parking lots are expensive, especially double deckers.  I think the mission of the university in building should be in providing instructional and lab space, not parking lots; if parking lots jack up the cost of building, I think it's kind of foolish to put them in, especially on land that is, for lack of a better term, "high value."  I say "high value" because I happen to think that there is something to be said for density in achieving the instructional and production goals of the university.  And cars are one of the many enemies of density.  The Arts Quad and environs should be one of the university's dense spaces.  And, yes, parking lots also offend against my sense of aesthetics; perhaps they offend against that of others as well.  When will we put a value on aesthetics?  Or shall we just pave the world for the sake of expediency?

Are people going to drive to Cornell?  Sure.  Frankly, many have to.  Why they have to and why that sucks is a separate argument.  But I think there are ways of satisfying drivers' needs without getting in the way of the majority of users of the high-value areas of campus and without building expensive parking lots as parts of new, ugly, modernist buildings.  As I said, we have excess capacity at other points on campus.  People can always drive and then finish their commute by walking, biking, or riding the bus.  To do so isn't "inordinately difficult."  I return to my point above:  why should we make it easy?

[KeithK]

Are people going to drive to Cornell?  Sure.  Frankly, many have to.  Why they have to and why that sucks is a separate argument.  But I think there are ways of satisfying drivers' needs without getting in the way of the majority of users of the high-value areas of campus and without building expensive parking lots as parts of new, ugly, modernist buildings.  As I said, we have excess capacity at other points on campus.  People can always drive and then finish their commute by walking, biking, or riding the bus.  To do so isn't "inordinately difficult."  I return to my point above:  why should we make it easy?

Imagine you are a department talking to a prospective faculty member, trying to convince him to come teach at Cornell. When the subject of living and commuting in Ithaca comes up you say how you'll have to park somewhere in Cayuga Heights and take a bus ride into campus. Or you can walk! Please pay no attention to the steady 38 degree light rain falling outside my window.  The job offer at Other School U just started looking a little mroe appealing.

Short version: a lot of folks consider ease of commute to be a greater quality of life issue than density. Is it worth the expense to cater to these people, faculty, staff and/or students? I don't know but I don't think it's a slam dunk. (Well, it probably is if you're talking about undergrads.)

And for the record, I grew up in Manhattan and love walkable, dense environments.

[RichH]

I choose to arrive on campus for homecoming in a Boeing CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter and park it in front of Lincoln Hall.  Why isn't Cornell responding to what *I* WANT to do by not bulldozing the trees on the Arts Quad and building me a helipad?  Also, let's fill in Libe Slope because I don't like walking up hills.

But my serious comment on this: When I was a tour guide for the engineering school, there was one mother-son pair on a tour.  They asked if it was possible/difficult to bring a car with him as a student.  I answered honestly, saying it's possible, but IMO was prohibitively expensive for someone like me.  Campus permits were very expensive for undergrads, and as a result, I saw central campus as chiefly a pedestrian campus.  Even living in Collegetown was a pain with a car with the odd-even regulations and expensive slum-lord lot costs.  I watched as their eyes glazed over and watched CU probably slide down a notch on their list.  

But you know, I didn't care. If you want a commuter campus, go to IC or Cortland some other school where there are vast expanses of concrete lots everywhere.  The campus is what it is out of geography, and I'd rather not see the University change that to be more convenient.   Be resourceful. Learn to adapt and get around your surroundings instead of trying to change them to cater to your desires of laziness and convenience.  That's the type of person I am.  I know this argument has enormous holes for Kyle & Keith to tear at, but I'm OK with that.  It's just how I am.  

If anything, I think it's gotten tougher & more expensive to have a car, since the nights/weekend permit restrictions have gone up in many of my old favorite campus lots.

I'd love to see data of undergraduate car ownership (basically those who took a car with them to Ithaca) over time.  As an undergrad, there were few people I knew who brought cars to Ithaca.  Taking the TCAT to the mall was pretty standard.  By the mid-aughts, it seemed that seeing an undergrad without a car was pretty rare.  In fact, I went to the towing lot with a regular poster of this board to get their car out after getting towed from parking illegally on campus.  "Again?!" they said, "That's the third time this term!!"  Pretty pricey for not wanting to walk, if you ask me.

[Scersk '97]

Short version: a lot of folks consider ease of commute to be a greater quality of life issue than density. Is it worth the expense to cater to these people, faculty, staff and/or students? I don't know but I don't think it's a slam dunk. (Well, it probably is if you're talking about undergrads.)

And for the record, I grew up in Manhattan and love walkable, dense environments.

Well, for the record, I grew up in good ol' Lansing, but, after living in Chicago for six years, I now love walkable, dense environments.  I expected to, and I was not disappointed.  (I'm currently in Philly, which presents different...  challenges.)  In fact, I used to commute to campus from my parents' place during the summers, so I know Cornell's parking difficulties intimately.  (Used to park on Highland and walk across the suspension bridge to work at the Space Sciences Building.  Yeah, it thunderstorms a lot in the summer.)

So what you mention has occurred to me.  Add it to the list of things that make Cornell a somewhat unattractive place to be a professor, at least for some people.  I find Ithaca a bit isolated, and the driving culture bothers me; I suppose others would relish the idea of forty acres, a mule, and a pretty short daily drive to work.  So I understand the concept of parking as, shall we say, a recruitment tool.  But do you think it's the newly-hired tenure-strivers that get those spots?  Nah...  they're status symbols.  And Cornell professors have always been leaving for "greener pastures"; heck, the whole physics department up and left for Stanford at some point.  Can't change the weather.  Rather like the hockey team, I feel Cornell should be looking for "recruits" that will look past those problems.  You know, the ones that will "get it."

I still contend that transferring to a bus is not "inordinately difficult."  Perhaps the university should be striving to make it even less difficult rather than building more parking lots.  (Bring back the trolley!)  Or the university should focus on helping to improve TCAT, which, for a small system, is already pretty darn good.  After all, a good bus system is a great alternative to walking or cycling for those Ithacating days.

Of course, the real answer, as always, is high-speed rail.

[Trotsky]

It's too bad eco-terrorist Luddite and enviro-rapist Minarchist are the only two conceivable approaches to this issue.