SCUPer Projects in New England Featured in Monthly High-Profile

Plesae scroll down to your SCUP Link, below this notice about SCUP–45.

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

The April 2010 issue of Monthly High-Profile features SCUP and projects planned and designed by many SCUPers. You can either view an online version or download a PDF here. High-Profile Monthly is a facility development trade publication, featuring construction activities in New England. The SCUP section runs from page 20 through page 25. Projects noted include the Meckert-Tracy Science Building at Stonehill College; renovations at Marblehead's Village School; a green student housing project, Mara Village, at Fitchburg State College; the American University for Medical Studies in Kuwait; and science and engineering facilities at Trinity University.

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SCUP's Planning Institute: Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers while you engage in one of the three SCUP Planning Institute Steps. In addition to being offered on demand, on campuses to teams of campus leaders, the institute steps are also offered to all professionals at varying times and venues. Currently scheduled are:

• May 22–23, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• July 10, Minneapolis, MN - Step I (in conjunction with SCUP–45)
• October 2, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• January 21–22, Tempe, AZ - Step II and Step III

Marymount College (CA) Taking a Town-Gown Dispute to the Voters

Please scroll down to your SCUP Link, below this notice about SCUP–45.

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

If you can't get your expansion plan approved, why not make it a ballot initiative and lobby the voters?

It was about 10 years ago that Marymount College asked Rancho Palos Verdes to approve a campus remodel, a makeover that would include a new library and gym and bring student housing to the ocean-view campus for the first time.

Now, angry at what it says is the agonizingly slow pace of gaining approval for the more than $50-million project, the small Catholic college has decided to take the issue directly to the city's voters with an initiative on the November ballot.

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SCUP's Planning Institute: Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers while you engage in one of the three SCUP Planning Institute Steps. In addition to being offered on demand, on campuses to teams of campus leaders, the institute steps are also offered to all professionals at varying times and venues. Currently scheduled are:

• May 22–23, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• July 10, Minneapolis, MN - Step I (in conjunction with SCUP–45)
• October 2, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• January 21–22, Tuscon, AZ - Step II and Step III

What's the Protocol for Abandoning an Architectural Competitioin Once It's Underway?

Plesae scroll down to your SCUP Link, below this notice about SCUP–45.

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

What if you (the University of South Carolina) have an architectural competition for a $60M campus building, several firms go all out in preparing bids, and then you decide to let your major donor pick the architect—and they pick one of the firms that allegedly would not have ended up winning the bid?

Here's an Insider Higher Ed summary and here's a link to an article in The Los Angeles Times.

In a move called "unprecedented" in its state, the University of South Carolina held a competition to design a major new business school building -- and let the donor select the winner, without telling the other firms spending considerable time and money on their proposals that they wouldn't have a shot at winning, The State reported.

The article focused on the ways that the process violated procedures in South Carolina, but the incident may also raise issues about the nature of philanthropy and the decisions that should or should not be made by donors. South Carolina's actions appear to violate standards for gifts by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

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SCUP's Planning Institute: Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers while you engage in one of the three SCUP Planning Institute Steps. In addition to being offered on demand, on campuses to teams of campus leaders, the institute steps are also offered to all professionals at varying times and venues. Currently scheduled are:

• May 22–23, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• July 10, Minneapolis, MN - Step I (in conjunction with SCUP–45)
• October 2, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• January 21–22, Tuscon, AZ - Step II and Step III

Integrating Sustainability in the Master Planning Process

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

With AASHE rolling out its Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS) earlier this year, the need to better integrate related planning efforts is clear. On many campuses, other than exercises related to accreditation the master planning process may be the best known and best integrated planning on campus. This workshop at SCUP–45 is very timely:

Audience: Campus planners involved in advancing sustainability through the effective use of master planning and appropriate measures at various planning levels.

Abstract: As the concept of sustainability is gaining momentum and many universities are committing to measurable environmental goals, planners are exploring strategies for integrating sustainability into the master planning process. One of the key challenges is incorporating measurable goals at different planning levels, where the required information and data may not be readily available. This workshop will review emerging methodologies for evaluating environmental performance indicators and for integrating sustainability in a comprehensive master plan.

Learning Outcomes:

• Assemble and organize sustainability goals, policies, and regulations relevant to the master planning process.
• Identify the key elements and metrics of a sustainable master plan.
• Test approaches for integrating sustainable design and planning goals in the master planning process.
• Review methodology for evaluating measurable outcomes of the sustainable planning process.
• Explore the process for reporting on sustainability outcomes.

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SCUP's Planning Institute: Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers while you engage in one of the three SCUP Planning Institute Steps. In addition to being offered on demand, on campuses to teams of campus leaders, the institute steps are also offered to all professionals at varying times and venues. Currently scheduled are:

• May 22–23, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• July 10, Minneapolis, MN - Step I (in conjunction with SCUP–45)
• October 2, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• January 21–22, Tuscon, AZ - Step II and Step III

Adaptive Re-Use On Campus: Pros, Cons, Considerations

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

This is a concise exposition of pros and cons, as well as a checklist of pertinent considerations for deciding whether to build new or re-use.

As designers, it is our underlying goal to understand our client’s objectives and help move them forward in a direction that best meets their current and future needs. This is no different when evaluating an existing building for potential reuse.

Generally, the choice to “reuse” will include the decision to renovate a significant portion of the existing facility to accommodate the new program. When evaluating “reuse” versus “build new,” it is important to consider the pros and cons of each choice.

The pros and cons of new construction are more straightforward than with a reused building. With a new building comes the ability to include state-of-the-art energy-saving building systems, modern materials and forms, and current design trends. The cons to new construction are rarely discussed, but they include the difficulty of finding open land on a college or university campus in the perfect location for the required program. Additionally, new construction will always go through a time when the design is “old” and “out-of date” before it becomes appreciated again.

The pros and cons to building reuse are sometimes less obvious.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"

The Perfect Building: But Needs Renovation & Underpass Access

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

Montgomery County Community College (MCCC) found an historic building but it was separated from campus by a freight railroad line, requiring a mile walk for students. MCCC staff and corporate partner renovated the first floor of the building and discovered and reconstructed a previously filled-in underpass that et students take a shortcut under the tracks. This is a brief but interesting article at University Business by Melissa Ezarik. “I think it’s triggered a camaraderie there.” Students are staying on campus longer and can often be found in local restaurants and volunteering downtown. “The community is so appreciative," notes president Karen Sout. More.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"

Don't Know Why I Have the Nicest Office in the Building

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

In the Chronicle Forums, a current question is getting a lot of attention: "embitteredhistorian" asked the question: "How does your university decide who gets what offices?" Some responses:

• "I've no idea why I got possibly the nicest office in the building."
• I received the office vacated by my predecessor and have clung to it stubbornly.
• All the furniture is standard - we are not allowed to bring in our own chair, table etc.
• Due to remodeling, reorganizations, new construction, leases ending, the hiring or firing of bigwigs, and the facilities staff and/or president having prophetic dreams, I get moved into a new space every year or two.
• My department, like many others nationally, has steadily lost tenured and TT lines over the years, so all of us have gotten an outside office with a window upon hire.
• it's our departmental administrator who makes the decision, according to what we suspect is a sort of 1950s sense of who "counts" (senior men, junior men; then, far below, senior women, junior women; and last, adjuncts, also sorted by gender).

Having a window that actually opens seems to be the most frequently mentioned desirable amenity.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"

Buildings & Grounds Blog Update

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

Lawrence Biemiller and Scott Carlson at The Chronicle of Higher Education continue to author the most frequently updated information source about facilities planning in higher education, the Buildings & Grounds Blog. We expect that Carlson will be covering a number of sessions at SCUP–45 in July.

Recent posts include:

• Florida Southern Plans to Add a Usonian House to Its Wright Collection
• Book Highlights Modern Architecture at Princeton
• Webster U. Plans New Academic, Science Buildings
• Pasadena City College Arts Center Is Delayed by State Architect
• U. of Wisconsin at Oshkosh to Turn Food and Yard Waste Into Energy
• Dickinson College Will Turn Unused Cupola Into a Birdhouse
• In New York, Sullivan County Community College Plans New Dorms
• Master Plan Would Make Appalachian State U. Campus Pedestrian-Friendly
• Presidents' Climate Commitment Report Released
• Virginia Tech Unveils Plans for $89-Million Arts Center
• In Arid Palm Springs, the College of the Desert Plans a Green Expansion
• Missouri State U. Students Protest Cost of Planned Recreation Center

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"

Fancy Building, Fancy Science?

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

Not strictly higher education, but the blogger at Corante has some interesting perspectives on the design of science facilities, as do his commenters.

[I] kept wondering, where have I heard descriptions like this before? Oh yeah, the last time I moved into a new building. Actually, every single time I’ve moved into one, come to think of it. I was part of a gigantic corporate move in 1992 into what was billed as a “high-interaction facility”, which was nothing of the sort. And then at the Wonder Drug Factory, one of the new lab buildings had the whole research area behind a large glass wall; it was the first thing you saw when you came into the place. Unfortunately, since it was full of snazzy equipment, it became part of the standard tour for visitors (the combichem labs were largely abandoned by then), and the people working there sometimes felt like zoo animals. And my current building has the labs all around the outside walls, and a huge atrium in the middle of the building (to what purpose, no one is sure; it’s completely empty).

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"

Taking the 'Institutional' Out of Institutional Design

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

Writing in College Planning & Management, Tim Culvahouse emphasizes some of the design practices and concepts campus planners could learn from the hospitality industry:

The challenges are significant. Campuses have grown incrementally over many decades, during which time changing architectural fashion has diluted the sense of campus unity and identity. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, dormitories and other campus buildings were often conceived more as riot-control devices than as places of comfort and nurture. And, as is always the case, expectations have risen faster than budgets.

Even the best campus planners and architects, immersed as they necessarily are in the familiar patterns of institutional design, rarely have the tools they need to address these heightened expectations. But their colleagues in hospitality design do. Design for hotels, resorts, spas and wellness centers, restaurants, and the like is steeped in the principles of a welcoming architecture and in the planning, construction, and budgetary efficiencies of an industry that has always depended on getting the most gracious bang for the buck. What are some of the things that campus architecture can learn from hospitality architecture?

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA - "Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats"
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"

Award-Winning: The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, CA and Ratcliff, Emeryville, CA

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

In 2009, the Bancroft Library was awarded a SCUP/AIA-CAE Excellence in Architecture for Restoration or Preservation Honor Award. You can read the project description here.

The library was suffering from many problems: inadequate accessibility; tenuous storage conditions for priceless materials; poor seismic ratings; inadequate HVAC system; aging fire safety systems; poor protection from theft; inadequate instructional space; and an uninviting reading room.

***

This project offers a global perspective on issues of preservation and access for academic and rare books libraries. Assessing the value of the collections to make the case for their preservation resulted in programming choices that safely promote the collections rather than sequester them for the sake of preservation. This was a key strategy in garnering private donations.

The jury said, “spectacular. . . before and after photos make you want to go there . . . turned it into a glorious place that is wonderful . . . excellent, given the importance of this to the university . . .”

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA - "Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats"
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"

Learning Space Design Precepts and Assumptions

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

SCUP–45 plenary speaker, SCUPer Mark Valenti of the Sextant Group, defines precepts and assumptions in the learning design process, in EDUCAUSE Review. This is a 2005 article:

A precept is a rule or principle prescribing a particular course of action or conduct. Design precepts describe the overall environment in which the learning space is being developed and help suggest the context in which the design team will formulate the project.

An assumption is something taken for granted or accepted as true without proof; a supposition. Planning or design assumptions provide direction to the design team and also act as a sounding board when hard decisions have to be made. Projects often encounter budget difficulties, programmatic changes midstream, and/or other events that can force the design team to reevaluate the project. Design assumptions provide the context for making those "value-engineering" decisions.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA - "Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats"
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"

New Building: Hank Greenspun School of Journalism at UNLV

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

With a focus on the pertinent technologies, Laurie Fruth, writing in Campus Technology magazine discusses the motivation and planning for what is now the fifth-largest building on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas:

Moving from an analog tape-based environment to a high-definition file-based facility was challenging but rewarding for both faculty and students. The old facility was built in the 1960s, and cobbled together with donated equipment, isolated edit bays, and antiquated wiring. Precious classroom time was lost while old equipment was repaired or while the campus engineer tried to devise ways to make disparate production systems work together. As technology evolved in the broadcast industry, administration knew that that the costly move to a file-based production process was greatly needed. The Greenspun gift made discussions toward this move possible. The campus began outlining what was needed in a new facility to best serve journalism students today, while gearing them up to the industry’s best multimedia news professionals of tomorrow . . . With the new facility and the latest in state-of-the-art production technology, it’s a goal the school is well on its way to achieving.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA - "Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats"
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"

Overcoming Obstacles to Going Green

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

Writing in American School & University magazine, Mike Kennedy surveys the barriers to going green in the design, construction, and operation of education facilities. One of those barrier may be tradition:

"To come up with the most effective green strategies for a facility, designers have to determine how the various design elements interact with one another; a seemingly innocuous change in one feature can weaken the environmental benefits that other features are expected to provide.

"Architects need to bring in engineers earlier and work out issues such as artificial lighting, daylighting, heat loads," says Dordai.

It's what architects call "integrated project delivery." "It's everybody contributing — the whole team focusing on the whole building and coming up with one vision," says Dordai.

Such cooperation seems like common sense, but for architects and engineers used to working a certain way, it can be difficult to break old habits."

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA - "Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats"
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"

New Book (free): Accelerating Campus Climate Initiatives: Breaking Through Barriers

• If you have an interest in this book, you may also have an interest in the SCUP regional one-day event happening April 7, in Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge."

This book, Accelerating Campus Climate Initiatives: Breaking Through Barriers, is the product of more than a year's research on a dozen campuses by the Rocky Mountain Institute. Download it here.

It is organized into five chapters:

• Climate Action Planning,
• Buildings & Utilities,
• Renewable Energy,
• Transportation, and
• Carbon Offsets & Associated Opportunities.

Subchapters each represent a "barrier" within the context of that chapter. So, for example, within Buildings & Utilities, there are subsections like "lack of capital," "Insufficient in-house expertise," and "Whole-system approach seems impossible." The book "explores a wide range of challenges committed campus planners are facing, including the real and perceived barriers. Real-world examples from campuses around the country help readers determine and drive projects based on a different way of thinking about buildings, utilities, perceptions, institutional structures, and all the other components comprising energy systems and campuses."

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA - "Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats"
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"

Cash-Strapped Colleges Turn to Businesses for Energy-Saving Deals

This excellent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Scott Carlson, is blurbed: "As funds for facilities dry up, colleges sign energy-efficiency contracts that don't always work out." It'll be available for a few days at this link. (Note: There are several related sessions at SCUP-45; search for "energy".)

With dwindling state resources, tight budgets, and a renewed focus on energy efficiency, more colleges are turning to energy-services companies, commonly known as ESCO's, for facilities projects. At the same time, companies that have not traditionally worked as ESCO's are joining that market, raising risks that colleges will be stuck with deals that overpromise and under-deliver.

The business models of ESCO's have varied over the years, but today most agreements between energy-services companies and colleges follow a fairly straightforward plan: The college and the company do a detailed accounting of the college's current energy use and decide on a set of projects that will yield energy savings. The college gets a loan to cover the cost of the work to be done by the ESCO and pays back the loan through the energy savings. If the savings are not as high as the company estimated, often it will pay the difference . . . Energy-performance contracting is a complicated business, in which technical experience and a familiarity with the clients can help avoid problems later on.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

Soon You Can "Print" a Building?

This article is long on personality but has good looks at this evolving technology. "In a small shed on an industrial park near Pisa is a machine that can print buildings. The machine itself looks like a prototype for the automotive industry. Four columns independently support a frame with a single armature on it. Driven by CAD software installed on a dust-covered computer terminal, the armature moves just millimetres above a pile of sand, expressing a magnesium-based solution from hundreds of nozzles on its lower side. It makes four passes. The layer dries and Enrico Dini recalibrates the armature frame. The system deposits the sand and then inorganic binding ink. The exercise is repeated. The millennia-long process of laying down sedimentary rock is accelerated into a day. A building emerges. This machine could be used to construct anything. Dini wants to build a cathedral with it. Or houses on the moon."

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA - "Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats"
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"

A Perfect Marriage of Old, New: Emerson's 'Replication' of the Paramount Theater (Boston)

Robert Campbell, the Boston Globe's architecture critic, apparently loves everything about Emerson College's restoration of the Paramount Center. What's not to like?

Note: Emerson was a recipient of a $200,000 Getty grant in 2006 and Emerson's full report back to the Getty is available on SCUP's Campus Heritage Preservation Network (CHPN) web site.

Some stories have a happy ending. The new Paramount Center on Washington Street is one of the triumphs of recent Boston architecture and urbanism.

The center, which was scheduled to host its first performance last night, is the perfect marriage of the right client and the right place. The client is Emerson College, which brings the kind of vital youthful activity that can regenerate a neighborhood. The place is the Paramount Theatre, a classic movie palace designed in 1932, at the height of the Art Deco period, but abandoned since 1976.
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This is also a marriage of old and new. The old is the Paramount Theatre, now lovingly restored to its original seductive glamour. The new is all the amazing and exciting modern stuff that’s been added to it. Some of that is in the Paramount Theatre itself, and some is next door in the center’s other building, known as the Arcade. There’s a black-box theater, a film screening room, rehearsal and practice rooms, a new backstage with a truck dock, lobbies, classrooms, offices, a student cafe, you name it. There’s even, up above everything where the views are, a top hat of dorm rooms for 262 future students.

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This is what makes good cities: the juxtaposition of new and old in one place, so you feel connected to history while you look forward to the future. Paramount Center embodies the wonderful urban paradox in which memory meets invention, the old and new converse with each other. The Paramount interior looks all the more 1930s because of its contrast with the neighboring architecture of 2010.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

A Call to Save an Unusual Fairgrounds Building, University of Nebraska at Lincoln

Link to full item:
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/A-Call-to-Save-an-Unusual/21468/

Text below is quoted from Scott Carlson at the Chonicle's Buildings &
Grounds Blog.

The University of Nebraska at Lincoln is giving people an opportunity
to propose uses for its Industrial Arts Building, a 97-year-old
structure on the old state fairgrounds that preservationist fear will
be demolished. The university says that if suitable plans for the
building are not submitted before July 1, the building will indeed be
razed. The university acquired the old fairgrounds last month to build
a research park.

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The preservationists have set up a Facebook page and a Web site, where
they go into detail: "The building is an exposition-type structure
with an impressive span of steel arches and beams. It was built with a
zero-carbon footprint and utilized natural light through skylights and
Palladian windows and natural heating and cooling through a series of
open windows and dormers. The interior structure of the building is
unique in Nebraska.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

Not a Library: Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center at University of Nevada, Reno

The new 295ksf building was conceived as a knowledge facility for the 21st century and is seen as "the beginning manifestation to substantial curricular change on campus, and a likely sea change in learning, I believe, in general." The former library had more than 1M books. The new facility has room for 3M, but is never expected to use the space for that purpose. UNR has several SCUP members, including director of facilities planning and analysis, Gary Bishop, facilities analyst Jed Hammer, executive vice provost Marc Johnson, interim associate vice president Stephen Mischissin, assistant vice president for planning, budget and analysis Bruce Shively, and vice president for administration and finance Ronald Zurek. We have several useful links for you:

• This article by Denise Harrison is in Campus Technology magazine.
• This link will take you to the MIKC's own, under construction, home page.
• From this link you can access a case statement for the MIKC, time-lapse photography of the project, and construction milestones and facts.
• The Facilities Services Department at UNR shows three large projects currently under construction and has links to several sets of guidelines: project development process, sustainability, and design and construction standards.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA