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After Bumps and Bribery Charges, Frank Gehry's Library Opens at Princeton
For its trouble, the university has gotten a structure that will probably inspire and delight those who work in it. (Photo by Brian Wilson, Princeton U.)
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More than a dozen university athletics programs have added lavish new facilities in recent years, and academic-services budgets are soaring, a Chronicle survey finds.
Lessons From Katrina Improve Colleges' Evacuations for Hurricane Gustav
College officials across the Gulf Coast were cautiously relieved that the damage wasn't more severe.
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As Credit Crisis Freezes Colleges, Worries Mount
Colleges have often considered themselves recession-proof. But this week’s events compounded an already-difficult year for many institutions.
Princeton’s Campus Plan Comes Into Full Bloom
The plan "treats the campus as a series of neighborhoods and encourages increasing density."
Loren Pope, Admissions Adviser and Author Known for 'Usonian' House, Dies
In 1939, when he was a $50-a-week newspaper copy editor, he commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design a 1,200-square-foot house that is now a museum.
New campus buildings
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A Green Building as a Billboard for Science
(A 2006 Chronicle video)
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About Buildings & Grounds
Buildings & Grounds is written by Scott Carlson (left) and Lawrence Biemiller (right). Scott Carlson writes about architecture, facilties, energy, and sustainability, among other topics. Lawrence Biemiller writes about architecture and facilities and contributes to Notes from Academe. What's happening on your campus? Let us know.
'Three Amigos' Advise Yale U. President on Building Matters
New Haven, Conn. — The rich, as F. Scott Fitzgerald pointed out, are different from you and me.
At Yale University, the president’s monthly meeting with the facilities staff has become famous — at least on the campus — according to Laura Cruickshank, the university planner. For one thing, the meeting can last four hours or more. For another, it’s attended by the architects of every project up for review, as well as by the current architecture dean, Robert A.M. Stern, and two equally illustrious predecessors, Tom Beeby and Cesar Pelli. Richard C. Levin, the president, refers to the trio as “the three amigos.”
Daunting as they must be for architects working at the university, the meetings are “very helpful” when important design decisions have to be made. “Everyone’s in the room at the same time,” Ms. Cruickshank said. “Everybody’s hearing what everybody else has to say in that one spot.” The three deans, she added, “act as stewards for the quality of design for the university’s buildings, and their questions and critiques unquestionably have resulted in better campus architecture.”
Ms. Cruickshank described Yale’s process for hiring architects and reviewing their work Saturday at a weekend symposium on universities as architectural patrons. The monthly meeting is part of what she said was a highly centralized facilities program that served the university well because “everybody knows that everybody is going to get their turn.”
Once a project comes up, Ms. Cruickshank said, the university strives to pick the right architect for it. “In general, we develop a list of potential architects for a given project and follow an RFP and interview process, with some selected appointments and a few competitions,” she said.
In assembling the list of firms that might be right for a job, she said, the facilities office looks at a firm’s design aesthetic, if any, as well as its experience with similar projects and who from the firm Yale would be working with. For initial interviews, Mr. Cruickshank said, she tells firms not to come with specific design ideas, because at that stage the university is more interested in the process the architects use to come up with designs. The final choice of an architect is Mr. Levin’s, she said.
Later, when the firm presents design schemes, the university makes another unusual request. Ms. Cruickshank asks to see drawings “in the context of building design, massing, and elevations for two blocks in each direction.” That helps the university understand “how this building is going to work in the context of the campus,” which she notes is composed largely of four- and five-story urban streetscapes.
Besides meeting with President Levin every month, the facilities staff also regularly briefs the buildings-and-grounds committee of the Yale Corporation, the university’s board of trustees. “Their interest in planning and design is tangible,” Ms. Cruickshank said, in what is no doubt a understatement of some magnitude.
Since her audience at the symposium was heavy on architects, Ms. Cruickshank went into some detail about how the facilities office goes about its business. “We follow very well-defined and result-oriented processes on all of our capital projects. We benchmark internally and externally. We establish a memorandum of understanding for every project, which is actually signed by the officers of the university, outlining scope, schedule, and budget. And it’s also signed by the occupants of the building — the dean of whatever school, the director of whatever institute.”
She said the facilities office estimated the cost of projects at several stages throughout the design process, and reined in costs — in a process referred to as “value management” or “value engineering” — after every design phase. The university also does risk analysis to decide on the contingency, or the amount included in the construction contract to cover necessary changes that cannot be attributed to the university, the architect, or the builder.
She continued: “We have steering teams for the more complex projects, which include — this is also very important — the user group, the architects, the construction manager, appropriate representatives from key university offices, such as New Haven and State Affairs, the secretary’s office, operations, general counsel, and office of development, depending on the nature of the project. We facilitate a team approach and increased fiscal responsibility. Our construction managers are engaged as early as the architects. And we use a cost-plus-fee methodology with our construction managers.”
Got all that? What it boils down to is this: The rich stay rich by making sure they spend their money wisely.
Lawrence Biemiller | Tuesday January 29, 2008 | Permalink | Contact usComments
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I applaud Ms. Cruickshank in not forcing prospective architects to prepare designs to compete for a builiding commission unless they are getting paid, as in a design competition. How can an architect be selected based on a design idea formulated without having the opportunity to review, process and consider the needs of the clients. This is a standard ALL of higher education should follow!
— Higher Ed Administrator Jan 29, 03:52 PM #