Reflection of Student Recreation Center

Last Thursday our class had the opportunity to tour the Student Recreation Center on the campus of Bowling Green State University. Thad Long as the Director gave us an extensive presentation and tour of the facility as well as a look into the history of the recreation center. There were many sections of the building that I never knew existed or knew were available to me as a student. I really found it interesting that we had two pools and room for students organizations as well as birthday parties.

I was also surprised that the section where the aerobic equipment is located on the second floor was originally open space where intramural teams could compete and practice. I hope that Mr. Long and his administration can succeed in their plan to remodel the facility in the near future. After seeing all of the construction on campus now, which is geared towards target groups of students such as athletes and art students; the student recreation center serves any and all students. This remodel would be incredibly valuable to the campus and attracting new students to enroll at BGSU!

More information can be found about other state of the art student recreation centers at the following universities:

University of Cincinnati : http://www.arcspace.com/architects/morphosis/univ_cinc/

University of Maine : http://www.nikiomahe.com/architecture-design/university-of-maine-student-recreation-and-fitness-center-united-states-by-cannon-design/

Capital Planning: Discussion from Bob Waddle’s Presentation

There were many interesting takeaways from Mr. Waddle’s presentation about BGSU’s capital planning and investments. Some of the specific needs were estimating “counts”, which are population of students potentially using the facility or in a given area versus the necessary space required to sustain those individuals. I always thought being creative would be an important factor in designing facilities but according to Mr. Waddle “DO NOT DESIGN”, but hire a professional firm to take your needs and run with the development of blueprints to meet those demands. These professionals understand what a certain facility can do for a university and how to save the organization money in the initial development. It was also interesting how competitive the bidding process was for hiring the right architects and builders for the project is. It makes since to be very selective since you will have to work with these individuals for usually a couple of years.

BGSU is building new residence halls, a common thing to consider also in a large city where populations increase. This is an interesting condominium building just finished in NYC.
Link:
http://blog.modernica.net/?p=13941

This next link is to a new facility built at the University of Bath which is very environmentally friendly and meets needs of students and faculty:
Link:

Risk Management and Negligence

In the Steinbach article, I feel it is the entity that is the driving force of such negligence. A governing body in the track and field world needs to reevaluate the regulations of equipment and overall level of danger of each of the events. Distance from one event to the next also needs to be examined. While reading the article, I thought about all of the other competitive sports that exist in the world and how relatively new they are compared to some of the events in track and field, which have been around since the roman empire days. Is it possible that a sport or competitive event could be considered outdated all together? It might be considered too ancient of a past-time that contains a danger level that some could consider to be barbaric in nature. The duty of these schools are to protect their students. The act of reasonable care is provided by the school but it has limitations. Students are usually under the age of 18 and are allowed to compete using a waiver from their parents. This decision to let their son or daughter compete could be a question of ethics on the part of all three parties involved, the school, parents, and student minor athlete.

As mentioned in chapter 2 of the text and in this article, many of the accidents occurred due to lack of improper supervision. Clear and open fields of play need to be required so that judges, parents, and officials can easily keep spectators and themselves out of harms way during events. You want to use the minimum amount of employees as possible for supervision while maximizing the amount of safety for the athletes themselves. Also proper signage as mentioned in chapter 7 are important for informing spectators and other athletes in the area of regions of the facility they cannot go, whether these regions of increased danger may be temporary or more permanent.

ADA Examples of BGSU Designs for Inclusion

Positive Examples of Designing for Inclusion (BGSU Campus)
1. Our classroom having accessible chair and table for handicapped to attend class.
2. Most of the older educational halls have ramp access to buildings entrance.
3. All water fountains on campus for the most part have different heights for access.
4. Most lots on campus have spots designated for handicapped parking.
5. Newer buildings on campus have drop off zones by vehicle with the proper space to drop off a handicapped student.
6. Multiple locations on campus have sloped sidewalk access to street for wheelchairs.
7. All ramps on campus have a gentle slope up so that wheelchair operator can approach with their own strength.
8. Railings for both ramps and stairs are in all locations on campus.
9. Dimensions and height of buttons on elevators in Union are large enough and low enough to be reached by handicapped.
10. All restrooms on campus are designed to include a handicapped stall.

Negative Examples of Designing for Inclusion (BGSU Campus)
1. Men’s restroom in Human Education Building is so small that a wheel chair cannot easily fit through the doorway. They later built another Men’s room right across the hall.
2. Wheelchair ramp design at library is out of the way and takes longer for handicapped to get down to entrance.
3. Business Administration Building only has one set of elevators on one side of the building. Overcrowding is possible.
4. Many buildings do not have direct street access so that handicapped cannot be dropped off directly at destination.
5. Stairs in some buildings such as human education building do not protect blind individuals from cross traffic while having a protected shade area.
6. Sidewalks do not take direct routes to destinations such as the man made path in front of the Union and behind Anderson Arena.
7. Being as flat as Bowling Green is, many areas on campus flood easily being lower than the water table. This is often true behind the recreation center. No prevention for handicapped with inclement weather.
8. How easy is the access to on campus transportation for those who require it due to handicap.
9.
10.Could not think of two others

Links:

www.ada.gov/?v=t (Official Website for Americans Disabilities Act)

SWOT Analysis of Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, MI

Strengths
– A new stadium offers the team more revenue from additional suites and corporate sponsorships.

Weaknesses
– The Joe Louis lease expires July 1, 2010, but the Ilitch family has to declare its intentions this summer.

– How the Ilitch family would finance such a venture when it’s hard to borrow money to buy a Mazda let alone an 18,000 seat hockey arena.

– Debt financing by the team is iffy at best and has hampered stadium projects elsewhere in the country.

– As popular as the Wings are, the use of any tax money — sales or otherwise — on a stadium project in stimulus times is going to be a tough sell.

– While most of the talk about empty seats in Detroit comes back to “it’s the economy

Opportunities
– Mike Ilitch has “until June 30 to tell Detroit if he will modernize the 30-year-old, city-owned arena or construct a new venue that likely would cost $200 million to $300 million.”

– What the city gains and loses if the Wings move to a new arena

– The Wings could ask for an extension on their decision

– Financing a new stadium through a combination of private money from the Ilitches and taxpayer money through an extension of local hotel and car-rental taxes

– If the Red Wings renew the lease and renovate the Joe, according to Crain’s “the city immediately loses the ticket taxes and in five years loses the surcharge on concessions and suites.” So maybe a new arena would be in Detroit’s best interest.

– Detroit could start charging for police and landscaping services (currently provided for free), and could collect property taxes beyond the current cap of $252,000 annually.

– Build a new arena in Windsor and the problem is solved.

– Just tell people your moving to Kansas City and suddenly everything will fall into place and 300 million dollars will suddenly “appear” for you to build a new arena. Crude business technique, but it gets the job done.

Threats
– On the financing front, the current economic climate makes the credit needed for an arena project tough to come by.

– If we get a new arena, I hope it’d still be called Joe Louis Arena; it just wouldn’t feel right and Detroit would lose a little bit of history if we did.

City of Brooklyn Case Study

Michael Davis
Brooklyn Case Study
It’s hard to take either side of a story that has direct impact on the displacement of a large population of people that are proud of where they live. The best way to address this situation is to break the sides of the decision up and discuss the benefits of both. A major corporation with all of the finances in line; only waiting on the approval of government to build and reconstruct downtown Brooklyn is one side; the other side being the citizens and various supporters of stopping the building and overall destruction of the neighborhood that many have called their home for years. Lastly I want to give my personal opinion of where the finances/subsidies should be concentrated to benefit both parties and still keep a since of accomplishment in improving a community that requires many updates with the changing times but still preserve the history and common interest of its community members which remains strong today.
Major development has been planned for the downtown Brooklyn area in New York to reconstruct the city’s infrastructure and install new housing developments, even some stories high across the river from Manhattan. There plans for new schools, police stations, and even a new sports arena as a new home for the New Jersey Nets professional basketball team. The corporation behind this development feels this project will provide new jobs, housing for the people, and bring money back into the struggling local neighborhoods of the downtown Brooklyn district. These are all things that the city of Brooklyn could use to secure a bright future and keep up with the technology of surrounding areas of New Jersey, Manhattan, and Long Island. The company feels that they have eminent domain in Brooklyn’s rundown sections and that gentrification is almost entirely necessary to stabilize the local economy and save citizens from becoming completely homeless.
With what seems to be a great idea, comes the issue of many negative impacts this construction project could have. According to the video, the corporation does not have the entire support of federal and local governments due to much petition and lobbying congress from the community and other anti-support groups. This disconnection raises questions if the corporation is going to be willing to compensate the citizens that are displaced due to construction. They say that the people will be allowed to live in the new housing units at the same price they were previously paying for rent, but where are they to go for temporary work or a place to live during the few year span that the project is estimated to take? With the building of new businesses, what will owners of local businesses already established do when they have to shut down for good? They don’t have resumes or background experience for new jobs that require a college education. They have been working this one place all their lives and more than likely took over operations from the family member before them that ran the shop. Many citizens see this project as a stripping from all of the culture of growing up and living in Brooklyn this past century.
Personally, I cannot agree with either side since I have never been to Brooklyn and can only draw conclusions from what I have watched from the video. I feel immersing myself into the environment currently in place and gaining a better understanding of the story would make it easier for me to make proper judgment. However I believe that remodeling of some areas is appropriate and quite possibly necessary. The developers should be allowed to build the new sports arena for the Nets to play in. The benefits would be great, including jobs easily accessible to the community, entertainment/source of revenue for a struggling region, and ethically it just makes sense to bring the idea “sport” back to Brooklyn. Sport in most cases always seems to build pride in a community and among fans and players alike. If they just construct one or two anchor assets in the city, then it would be a good founding to slowly build from that onto housing units and so on. People who have been living the same way for a hundred years don’t like change and I can respect that sentiment. Let’s not crush lives overnight with a two billion dollar sledge hammer but get back to the roots of a historically important town and bring positive improvements to a struggling urban America one small project at a time.

Eppler Complex Program Statement Assignment

Eppler Complex Renovation Program Statement

Program statements are very important in the planning phase of building a new facility. Since this project involves the input of alot of people, is usually high in cost, and includes alot of cooperation from different parties, you have to make a statement that covers all areas of the construction/renovation. This process can be complicated and involve up to years of construction and planning time.

Here is a link to the current construction plan of BGSU for 2010 and 2011:

The next link is for an interesting site that has recommendations and other stories of renovations done to aging school facilities:
http://www.edfacilities.org/rl/build_or_renovate.cfm

Objectives:
-Use a uniform style of building design and materials
-Install latest educational technology in classrooms
-Replace depreciated equipment/objects with new items

Factors Affecting Planning:
-Proper disposing of aged equipment
-Bowling Green Hazardous Materials Regulations
-Contracting efficient construction company
-Zoning Issues during renovation

Comparable Facility Analysis:
-Compare current facility issues with other depreciated buildings on campus
-Cost issues with specific materials and equipment in aged facility

Preliminary Data:
-Records of Budget and Funding
-Engineering Issues
-Blueprints

Space Needs and Allocation
-Moveable Parts
-Transformational Aspects for the use of several organizations and activities

Purpose and Use of Auxiliary Space:
-Groups/Organizations using the facility currently or in the future
-Demensions of different rooms in facility

Service Facilities:
-Size of restrooms and office space
-Private donations/grants
-Naming Rights

Spatial Relationships:
-Fire Codes: Emergency Exits
-Disaster Plans
-Inspection for Harmful Designs or Equipment

Environmental Necessities:
-Energy Levels needed to sustain functioning facility
-Program for “Going Green” established

Equipment and Furnishings:
-Installation of new seating, electronics, and building materials

First Blog Post Ever!!!

Here I sit and write. Still trying to figure out the process of the “blog”.

Seth Galifianakis