Volume 4, number 3, April 2002 Masterly Planning The tale has it that back when James Wickersham, then the territorial delegate to Congress, announced it was time for Alaska to take part in the land-grant college boom, he was having a picnic with some friends and associates. They agreed that a college was a capital idea. Gallantly, Wickersham offered the privilege of selecting the site for the future Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines to the senior lady present, Harriet Hess, wife of his mining partner Luther Hess. Mrs. Hess was, by all accounts, a most level-headed woman. She considered the long slope of the hill on which they were picnicking, its proximity to the growing town, its southern exposure, its handsome view of the distant mountains. "Here will do just fine," she supposedly said, and tied her linen handkerchief to a tree to mark the spot. Mrs. Hess indeed did just fine when she picked the site, but the thoughtfulness and preparation symbolized by her swift selection of the propitious twig for her hanky seems best to symbolize the general ditziness that has haunted design and placement for structures on College Hill ever since. That wisp of fabric might as well be the first of many white flags of surrender to the forces of dingbattery. Architecturally, the campus has always been a kind of elephant’s graveyard; building by building, it documents styles in design—usually a decade or two after they passed from fashion—prevailing in the United States since about the 1930s. (The earlier structures have been demolished, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that they also embodied standard styles, often with a peculiarly Alaska-specific twist. Old Main, for example, looked just as an oversize white-clapboard-sheathed eighteenth-century New England meeting hall should look, if it had been built by unemployed miners whose architectural vision was formed by the FE Company.) There’s the 1950s take on Northwest Style, shown best by the former president’s residence, now the abode of the campus chancellor; there’s the late1940s International Style of the upper dormitories, Constitution Hall, and the Bunnell Building, though Le Corbusier might not recognize the geometric purity of his concepts in these pebble-studded offspring. There’s the Depression-fostered Soviet Moderne style of the Brooks and Eielson buildings, faintly military-looking classics unloved by later campus builders and planners because, although they weren’t particularly well designed, they were built hell fer stout, as my Yankee forbears would say. I’ve been told that folks still weren’t perfectly sure about how reinforced concrete would bear up under extreme cold when those buildings (and the now tarted-up Signers’ Hall) were added to the campus collection, so they overbuilt like crazy. Campus planners demolished one of the buildings of that period—the little dorm known as Harriet Hess Hall—but it took them far longer and cost much more than they estimated to reduce it to rubble (a destruction needed so the Vertical-Fortress-style—or perhaps Missile-Silo-style, since it had no permanent internal walls—Gruening Building could go up). The planners decided to leave the rest of those tough buildings standing; revamping their interiors was problem enough, but knocking them down would break the bank. So the buildings make an entertaining study for the melodrama of Alaska Meets Architecture, but for real fun, one must turn to the many attempts at overall campus planning. Suffering evidently from the traditional doubt that Alaskans have mastered what the first President Bush called the Vision Thing, the various presidents, chancellors, provosts, engineers, and committees empowered to create master plans usually turn to Californians for guidance. (Well, how can you go wrong following the people who perfected freeway on-ramps and megamalls?) I know more than most about such things because, among my many attempts at wresting wages from the university, I once worked in a campus support department called Facilities Planning and Construction. My job was paper-trail research; I was a paralegal, investigating the background for some of the many bits of litigation related to building projects on College Hill. Who was responsible for setting the O’Neill Building backward on its lot? Who should pay for fixing (again) the chronically leaky roof of Wood Center? Ought the architect who put the switch to vent poison gas from the then-new library’s fumigation room on the inside of the gas chamber be offered the first chance to operate his new facility? Oh, the questions, the never-ending questions...And in my free time, I got to scan irrelevant files, such as those related to master plans. Fortunately, the university never had enough money to see one of those beautifully rendered and compelling documents through to completion. They all had plenty of the Vision Thing, but they were a little short in the Reality Department. We had campuses designed as circles, as linear road-hugging nonstop structures, as islands (actually, the present more or less carried-out scheme most reflects that one: there’s Science Island high on the West Ridge, with the Dormitory Cays between that and Administration Reef, which shares the waters with the Classroom Sandbars). One planner even absent-mindedly drew palm trees in the landscaping along the road between upper and lower campus. Now, thanks to my Noble Spouse, I’ve learned that a new campus master plan has appeared, one with some singular properties. For example, it identifies as a feature most in need of fixing an excess of parking, especially overly convenient parking, on campus. Wowee, fer sure, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard people complain about how there are too many parking spaces too handy to their destinations on campus, I’d be precisely as broke as I am now. The planners argue that prime locations should contain buildings, not pavement. Thus, for example, the new home for the biological sciences may be plonked into the parking lot and lawnoid space to the west of the Arctic Health Building—thereby removing both some excess car spaces and the southerly view from the new IARC headquarters (unaffectionately nicknamed the Duct Tape Building, in honor of its familiar shiny color and tape-roll curves). When twitted about deducting parking spaces, the planners asserted there would still be plenty of them. They’d be congregated in new lots well to the north of the presently occupied portions of campus, to be served by shuttle buses. Oh, sure. Since I’ve developed a bum knee, I’ve lost a lot of faith in the present crop of university shuttle buses. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve had to hobble toward the office because the shuttle didn’t show up, I’d be a lot richer than I am now. Parking would also be taken care of by a high-rise garage, to be set in the former ash heaps downhill by Farmer’s Loop. The early drafts, at least, had that parking garage unequipped with plug-ins for engine heaters. They’re not customary in California. (Air quality? What’s that? Besides, the garage would be directly below the environmental sciences labs on campus. All those cold starts would give the students something to measure.) The new master plan calls for the shuttle-bus only use for the main road from upper to lower campus, enhancing it with more pedestrian walks and bikeways. Thus, the planners assert, the newly reconfigured campus would be a people-friendly one, less subservient to mechanized means of transport. The architectural renderings did not show the bicyclists and pedestrians wrapped into spherical blobs against the cold, but perhaps the next draft will be more accurate. Once, one plan-the-campus committee brought an architect north to spend the month of January in Fairbanks. His design was the linear one—with enclosed, heated walkways connecting all the buildings. However, the newest plan suggests, firmly, that future buildings should be clad in tan finishes, so the omnipresent interior Alaska dust will not make them look grubby. Does this indicate something about the season in which the planners visited the campus? For about six weeks either side of the Fourth of July, dust in the Fairbanks area is indeed loessy tan. For the rest of the year, it’s either white, as in snow, or black, as in soot. But how could a Californian know that? In their home state, dust is tan, year around. I suspect that once again financial exigency will save the campus from proceeding along a beautifully designed path straight to Hell, or at least Heck, since we for sure can’t follow through perfectly with any plan. That is, I’d guess the new biology building will squat in the West Ridge view while filling up some parking places, but there won’t be any new parking garage, given the cost. (There’s already a new parking lot for museum visitors—a shameful use for the former site of the once-noble College Observatory—but faculty, staff, and students are Not Permitted therein.) The planners compared parking among eight or so campuses—so many employees, so many students, so many spaces for cars. They insisted that the data showed that the University of Alaska Fairbanks was oversupplied with parking spaces if one looked at other northern schools. They were quite right. Universities major and minor allowed fewer slots per student and staffer than did UAF. However, as the Noble Spouse ascertained, if one looked at the latitude of the colleges and universities, UAF didn’t look so well equipped: the farther north the campus, the more parking spaces needed per capita. Extrapolating within that pattern, he found that UAF is short of parking spaces right now. No one who’s tried to do business on campus would be surprised. Given that, you might think the outcry from the campus community against reducing parking-space availability and convenience would be deafening. After all, it is essentially an expression of contempt for the worth of time to university people: If you’ve got to park at a distance, you’ve got to allow time to catch a shuttle bus or walk (or hobble) to your destination. Leave home an hour early so you can be on time to class or work, say the upper-echelon administrators. We don’t care. Once, perhaps, such an attitude would have roused the campus, but not now. Staff and faculty are distracted by other problems, and with the enthusiasm of youth, the student body has responded to the new plan with a resounding, "Whatever." Ah, the joys of a commuter campus... | ||
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