The Ups and Downs of Doing the Right Thing

(this one's not as late but I'm still apologizing anyways - Editor)

By and large, people want to do the right thing. Well, sorry, that's not quite right. They want to do the right thing, and for the right thing to be easy to do. That covers most cases anyways. The truth is, many times, the right thing isn't so easy to do. The right way to, for example, write code, takes a hell of a lot more effort than just pushing out something that works. It's just that the consequences are so large, frequently, that people put in that extra step to do something for a little more effort.

I'm not here to tell you all the wonders of the BIF. I'm not here to praise it's magnificent glory. It's better than the new ECE building, for sure, but it's far from perfect. Not necessarily because of my own background, I largely prefer Siebel, but that's another matter.

Regardless, the BIF was designed with a mission in mind. That, of course, is the secret to doing things the right way; planning it out first. Now, I can't get into the head of the architect and tell you precisely what they were trying to do, but walking around, you get the sense that the BIF was built to be LEED certified. Not exactly to be sustainable; that was more of a pleasant side effect where their designs worked out. Rather, the University wanted something to show off beyond just having a snazzy building.

To that end, they designed things in clever ways, in many instances. In addition to having a huge, captivating room for students to work, hang out, and drink coffee in, they gave the atrium a utility for the building's designated goal. It was designed to soak up as much heat as possible in the winter to reduce heating costs while letting heat go in summer, so as not to roast the inhabitants.

The atrium of BIF. The floor acts as a heat sink in winter, catching as much sunlight as possible.

Despite these noble, original goals, there are hiccoughs along the way. After the designs are laid out on paper, the way people actually use the building decide whether the "sustainability" truly checks out.

More of the atrium. Is there not enough light, even with the clouds, to justify turning off the atrium lights?

That's not to say that the building is poorly designed, or even that it fails its supposed goal of sustainability. The floor heat sink thing works, more or less. And take a look at the roof above the atrium. There's no way any person can mess with the utility built into it. The roof is completely static, even as it shoots out beyond the building some great distance. No person can change that fact, short of destroying the building; whether the distance out is correct for shading the atrium in the summer and letting the sun shine in in the winter is an entirely different matter (not saying it doesn't, just that I don't know whether or not it does).

The giant "potato chip" roof above the atrium blocks out the higher summer sun while letting the lower winter sun in.

And, on the matter of the roof, the rest of the roof of the building should be appreciated as well. Supposedly, LEED didn't even give the building any credit here, for building a system intended to hold water in place here rather than let it flow away. It doesn't hurt that, although the prairie grass of the main courtyard outside the atrium has been cut down, these roofs still pay homage to the building's local heritage. Not that, in the conditions we visited, you would really notice that.

The roof garden frames the atrium space in a large U. In winter it isn't terrible impressive.

But here again we see problems. Continuing on the roof around the building to the auditorium, we see a bank of solar panels. Unfortunately, Illinois isn't a very ideal place for trying to generate electricity from the sun. This is even less true in the winter, when snow might cover the panels. Here, though it seems the University is trying to do things that will help the sustainability of the building (or, at the very least, get itself some LEED points), it ultimately doesn't do very well.

The solar panels above Deloitte Auditorium cannot power the entire room at full capacity,
let alone with snow covering the panels.

And that brings us to the silliest part of the building. It was a nice thought, to promote bike usage (and therefore less dependence on fuel-burning cars), to install bike racks. Not that they help many people behind a chain link fence. Even nicer to include these bike change rooms, to help people out who ride their bikes in but don't want to be sweaty all day. Not that people would think much of a door that requires a swipe in to be able to use unless they were lucky enough to be able to get in.

This room is made available (theoretically) to people who ride their bikes in to work,
so that they may shower and change clothes.

So, here's the naked truth. Did the University do the right thing in BIF? I think, for the most part, they did. And, even if the true goal of mandating that every new building earn some sort of LEED accreditation is for advertising purposes (after all, you have to pay LEED for the right to be tested at all), it doesn't hurt that the by-product is buildings that might have smaller (though not zero, yet) impacts on the environment. But, though it may be so very, very hard, there's always ways to do better. So, let's hope the University can truly impress us with the next building it puts up.

(Let's just ignore the ECE Building. Maybe it is more sustainable, but... eugh.)