4/14

4/14

We first stopped at the Education building on our tour today, which was kind of cool considering I'm Chemistry for secondary education. Walking there, we discovered that the education building was supposed to be a twin. It kind of makes sense that we wanted a second building back then; I think there was a bigger importance placed on k-12 education at the time (1964). Anyways, walking up to the building, it was noted that it looked like a temple (kind of like a temple of learning), and that the sidewalk gradated from coarse stones to finer stones. In addition to this, when you looked from in front of the education building, you saw that it was on axis with the archway by Wohlers, creating an axis. Going in, the ceilings looked like they were made from concrete, but they were actually steel with concrete poured on it. Looking at the sides of the walls was kind of cool. They had wooden slats to cover all the icky necessities such as air ducts and heaters and the like. We went upstairs onto the balcony as well (I didn't even know you could go on the balcony. Or that there even was a balcony), and we were able to see that the bottom of the building was significantly larger than the top of the building.

After visiting the Education Building, we headed over to the Krannert Art Museum. It has a "pregnant belly" that kind of invites people in from the field area. Walking inside we were able to view it from the other side, and we also noticed that the banister of the staircase had a design that looked like the museum on it. We just kind of wandered around the museum for awhile after that, and saw some interesting works of art.

4/23

4/23

Today we went to Philo, Illinois. It was a nice drive out there, we passed the time counting grain elevators. Getting to the town was nice, it was really interesting to see the differences between a small town and a Chicago-suburb. Instead of having cookie cutter houses, each house was different and didn't necessarily follow a style. In addition to this, the trees were incredibly diverse. Back at home, the trees are mainly American Basswood, Honeylocust, and Red Maple (there were ash but they all got cut down). In Philo, there were Sycamores, Japanese Maples, Yellow Poplars (tuliptrees), other kinds of maples I wan't able to identify because of lack of leaves, Sweetgums, and possibly a green ash (we drove by it so I wasn't entirely sure). Even the lawns were kind of diverse. A lot of them had wildflowers growing on them which was really beautiful, and something I don't get to see at home. It was just really refreshing to see a bunch of different tree types and just something different than what I'm used to a neighborhood being.

After that we went to get food and drinks (soda/lemonade/water) in a tavern, and we talked and had a really nice time.

4/7 & 4/9

4/7

Smith Hall was really beautiful to see. I had been in there once before, but it was for an event a really long time ago, so I had totally forgotten what it looked like! I had never understood why the main entrance to the building wasn't facing the quad, but it's to open the building up for the music majors coming from the East, as well as the public coming to view the show. The walls are built so that it's acoustic, which I'm thinking is pretty standard nowadays for grand auditoriums. Walking through the building was really cool though. I loved hearing the music played in the hallways (there was some jazz violin going on at the time, which I didn't know was a thing), and the beautiful water fountain, which didn't work unfortunately... We weren't able to go into another room because there was a class in there, but from the little I could see of it, there was a beautiful chandelier.

The Foreign Language Building has always interested me. It's so weirdly shaped and just never seemed to fit in. There was an interesting story that Professor Hinders came up with about how the architect was inviting God to come in. While that is a really cool explanation of the building, and it makes complete sense, I don't know if that's what the architect was actually thinking. I suppose the true story behind the design of the Foreign Language Building will remain a mystery to me.

The Institute for Genomic Biology was really cool to see because I had never been in there before. The statues by the building are meant to represent the fact that sciences like genomic biology are always changing, and are being progressed by the work of scientists. Well, that's what I think anyways. Inside the building was cool because there were a lot of subtle biology things incorporated into the building. The ground was made up of long dead, pressurized living matter. The walls had wood on them, and another wall by the sitting area had a ton of fossils prints hanging from it. It's kind of funny how the Morrow plots had an effect on that building too. I hadn't noticed that part of the building was pushed underground because of the plots until someone pointed it out to me. One thing that I really liked was out on the sidewalk across from the blobs and over the open space near the flowers. When I was walking back, I noticed that the sidewalk had a pattern on it that resembled DNA helicase. It's just kind of cool to see the subtle things that can be put in.

3/31 & 4/2

3/31

Today we visited the cemetery. I had never been there before, so it was kind of cool seeing how it was sectioned out into different religions. In the Jewish part of the cemetery, there were stones placed next to many of the graves for remembrance.

We also walked over a potter's field to get to the section for veterans. It had a really nice memorial flag pole set up. At one point they had also had four bushes sectioning it off to make corners for the area, but three of them started getting overgrown and had to be removed.

It was kind of interesting seeing the politics that go on in grave sites. Both the athletic director and the coach of the football team are buried on the 50 yard line, however, the director is closer to the field, and visible from the sidewalk. In addition to this, it was kind of interesting how families would set up a barrier around an area so that other people wouldn't encroach on the space.

4/2

Today we visited a construction site.The building will be for veterans, and it was really cool seeing how the building was being constructed to reflect the purpose of it. For example, the guy who was giving us the tour said that all mechanical rooms are pressed for space, and elevator mechanic rooms are even worse. Even though they had limited space, they made sure to put in two elevators because that might be necessary for the population that would be using the building. In addition to this, the rooms on the top floor had a track built into the ceiling. This would be for a movable chair that can be inserted into the ceiling, which would allow for the student to get around the room and to the bathroom without any assistance. There was a kitchen on the ground floor that would be used to help people learn to cook, and there were a series of offices and physical therapy rooms that could be used by the students.

One thing that I really found interesting was the way the common room was laid out. The outside walls were mostly made of windows, and the room was very open. The architecture had designed it this way because it allowed for the people there to see who's coming and going, which would make them feel more at ease. The openness is because apparently many veterans get anxious when in closed off spaces.

3/17 &3/19

3/17

Today we walked around Campustown! It was really interesting hearing how the changes to campustown came from joint collaboration from U of I, the business owners, and the city of Champaign.

It was really interesting to hear how surveying the students changed the landscape of Campustown. Originally, there were multiple lanes going in each direction and very narrow sidewalks, but now it's been transformed into more of a place by expanding the sidewalks and decreasing the number of lanes through that section of green street.

It was also kind of funny seeing houses built right in to so many of the buildings on green street! For some of them, it makes sense, but for other ones were they just built it into the building, it makes no sense to me.

It was also kind of cool learning about the canopies over the north and south sides of the streets. It makes more sense that the north side gets a larger canopy, and now I understand why the campus flowers' canopy always seemed so big.

3/19

Turned in models today! Almost break!

3/10 & 3/12

3/10

Today we visited downtown Champaign. It was really cool learning about the history of Champaign, and how it used to be called West Urbana, and how Urbana was named after Urbana, Ohio by immigrating pioneers.

Something that I found kind of cool was the fact that Champaign tried to increase commerce by creating an outdoor-walking mall, but instead of increasing it, sales dropped. They ended up going over some of the sidewalks so that people could drive over them again, and commerce picked up once again. You're still able to see traces of this in the way that the sidewalk is still cobblestone.

In addition to this, it was really interesting how there were at least four churches located right by the park. This is because for a long time, shops couldn't be open on Sunday, so the park provided wholesome, after-church activity for families.

3/12

Today we brought in our models. It was really weird cutting up the work someone else did. Next week the final presentation is due! I'll definitely have to work on that!

3/3 & 3/5

3/3

Today we went to BIF on our class tour. It was really interesting learning all about the LEED certification process. BIF is certified under some sort of LEED (I don't believe we ever figured out whether it was bronze, silver, gold, or platinum). However, it was slightly disappointing that buildings get points for simply adding features to their building. For instance, the panels that BIF has on parts of its roof were filthy, which doesn't allow for a whole lot of energy to be taken from the panels. They're still getting points for this however, simply because they're there. It's the same with the shower/changing stalls at BIF by the bike rack. Most people don't know it's there, and it's kind of a wasted space. Last year I wrote a paper on LEED and how, in theory it was an okay idea, but in reality it was awful simply because you could just add a lot of things to a building to get certification.

On a side note, I really loved the main staircases at BIF.

3/5

Today I went to the EXPO and conversed with WJE (Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc.) The following is an abbreviated record of the conversation we had.

-What kind of projects does your firm take on?

-Well, we're engineers, architects, and material scientists and we look at buildings with problems so it could be as small as a residence, or as large as a large commercial building.

-What kind of problems do you typically find in buildings?

-All sorts! It could be structural, as bad as a collapse, or as small as a water leak and everything in between. Condensation, material issues, interface detailing problems, planning issues, you name it.

-How big is your firm?

-We're a little over 500 people. We've got 18 offices across the country. 19? 19, it's already growing!

-Do you guys spend a lot of time on construction sites?

-Yeah, we spend a lot of time in the field doing investigations, and then if we're involved in the repairs we spend a lot of time at the site as well.

- So, you said you hire material scientists too?

-Yeah, we do. We have our own laboratory, which is unique in our consulting field, and we have our own chemists and engineers with a material science background.

-What is typically a starting salary for you?

-That's a really good question that I don't know the answer to! I think it depends on what level you're entering the company at. We're not really involved in that. We just attract the good people.

-What's one of the biggest projects you guys have taken on?

-There's a lot... Notable projects that were big were... the I-35 collapse, the big dig project in Boston, we actually did an investigation of a plane crash once, alcatraz...those are just some of the more well known ones. We do a lot of work for state capitals as well.