Schedule for Moving Home

Over the past year all of our stakeholders have talked a great deal about the overall timeline and specific schedules needed for project completion—construction schedule, relocation schedule, schedule for furniture, and others. Along with team members Roberto Rengel and Rose Barroilhet, I attend the bi-weekly construction progress meetings so we can keep Human Ecology-specific deliverables on task and coordinate with JP Cullen. At these meetings schedule details are hammered out with the contractor for testing and balancing, when the building is to be cleaned, coordination with campus for fiber optics, and so on.

A major milestone is "substantial completion," the point in the project where the state (remember it's the state, not the campus, that holds the contract) in consultation with the campus, determines that the contractor is just about —but not quite—finished. The architect and campus develop a "punch list" of items that the contractor is still required to complete, but the progress of preparing to occupy the building may continue to move forward.

The time from substantial completion until the start of furniture delivery is busy and many tasks are executed. The internal systems (heating, ventilating, etc.) are tested and balanced, punch list items and technology interface with equipment continues, and many, many more details are confirmed. Furniture delivery—a massive undertaking coordinated and led by campus—won't begin until after this period of testing is complete. And having seen the draft schedule for furniture delivery and installation, I can verify this is a complex plan involving access to the Human Ecology loading dock, coordinating which vendors have access to the building elevators and for how long, and when the semi-trucks are allowed on campus.

The bottom line? The academic departments (CS, DS, HDFS, and IS) will be the first to move into the new building starting May 21, 2012, which means faculty, instructional spaces and the departments must be packed and ready to go.

The balance of Human Ecology units including Centers, administration and projects will immediately follow - keep checking this blog for information and updates.

Are you ready for some football?

I love fall - between the Packers and the Badgers it's just heaven for football in Wisconsin. As an added bonus I park in campus parking Lot 17 which overlooks Camp Randall. No kidding - walking out to my car I can lean over the west side and look down on the practice fields. Or if I park on the top level I am eye-to-eye with Camp Randall. It's a pretty cool view.

Last Monday I was at the construction site and spent a bit of time walking the north side. Holy cats, it's stunning. As I stepped back on the Observatory walkway I got to wondering....just how long is the new complex?

According to our design team, the length of the new facility (existing and addition) is longer than a football field - 1.4 times the length of a football field from the end zone to end zone. Since our building has connections between the addition and existing that are uninterrupted, I should be able to drop a few pounds just walking east to west.

That is if I don't stop halfway at the cafe for a little nosh....you know, just to keep my energy up.

On Wisconsin!

Crane Foundation

No, not talking about the International Crane Foundation, but the construction crane foundation.

A few weeks ago the large crane was taken down from the Human Ecology construction site. For over a year the crane was a fixture against the skyline, a symbol of Human Ecology strength as a member of the flock of cranes on campus. In June we met Sergio, our crane operator who shared the, shall we say...nuances... of spending 8 hours in the air. Once you meet the person who swings the big arm, it becomes personal. You could look at the webcam and see what Sergio was working on that day. It made me proud to think our crane was up there with similar beasts working on the Wisconsin Energy Institute, Union South or Biochem II. They are magnificent.

One of my colleagues asked what happens to the concrete pad the crane had been resting upon - excellent trivia question. Eric Plumer of JP Cullen tells me the crane pad for our project was an integrated part of the footings for the structure. This strategy has 2 benefits - saves on concrete by having the pad do "double duty" and keeps it out of the landfill.

Perhaps just a small plaque on the walkway, "Sergio flew here"

If we LEED, will you follow?

One of the five principles of the Human Ecology building project relates to creating a "...high quality, healthy and energy responsible environment..."

While the project is currently trending LEED Gold certification thanks to the help of our design team and friends, it's important to think beyond achieving LEED and think about behavior changes.

Smoking will not be allowed in the building or within 25 feet of building entries or fresh air intakes. The design team also included a prohibition on smoking inside the building DURING construction to prevent materials from absorbing contaminants that can be released later during occupancy.

Personally speaking, I will be really glad to not have to run a smoke-filled gauntlet to get into the building during inclement weather.

Off the Record

It seems like not that long ago we talked about the need to reduce paper files, and the anxiety that sometimes comes with the transition. When we relocated out of the building at 1300 Linden Drive, we made a massive leap forward to transfer information into electronic formats. The hum of the "Snap-Scan" was up and down the hall - the sound of moving into the next phase of records management. Departments, administration and centers took advantage of this opportunity to streamline operations and leverage record keeping in the clouds.

Now that we are preparing to move back to the building some things have changed - we are more nimble, have fewer file cabinets and have a better "carbon footprint" because we are not printing so much material.

But because we are a public enterprise there are still rules and regulations about what records must be stored in hard copy, what we are required to keep on premises, what is appropriate to send to Archives and what (or when) is the protocol for final disposition.

The campus has an excellent resource to help answer some of your questions - University Archives and Records Management (ARMS.) Please take a few minutes and look at their website:
http://archives.library.wisc.edu/

Letting go of hard copies can be a blessing - I've got about 90% of the building information stored electronically. Occasionally I freak out my team member Roberto because I can search and pull material faster than anything, because it's stored electronically.

I know, can you believe it?! When I move back, the materials in the single 5-drawer cabinet (which is all building stuff) will be cataloged and sent to Archives, along with the contents of a 2-drawer cabinet.

Now if I can just clean up my desk at home....

Mighty Neighborly

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side.
It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors.

"Mending Wall" Robert Frost (1874-1963)

To the left, construction of the preschool playground retaining wall begins.

Below is a view of the pedestrian walk-way between Ag Hall and the Preschool playground.

Key Area

It wasn't until I started on this project that I came to appreciate the role keys play in my everyday life. A key still starts my car (working towards a Prius), unlocks my office and secures a bike lock. I use special limes for key lime pie, work on a keyboard, write key points for a presentation and about twenty years ago, I gave my husband the key to my heart.

Fast forward to this time next year when we are in the new building....the days of issuing keys to hundreds of students will be gone and in its place - card access.

Security and access is important - the safety of students and staff was a major topic for the Building Committee. During peak times of the semester undergraduate students will be working at all hours to complete a class project, graduate students may be pushing hard to meet a funded project deadline - we are not a group that fits nicely into a 9-5 scenario.

The beauty of card access is the ability to quickly grant (or remove) access without having to handle a key. With a few short keystrokes (you can boo) the facility manager will be able to add or remove access priviledges for anyone with a valid WISCARD.

For those who "pooh pooh" card access thinking students will just prop open the door, we've got you covered. Each door with card access is connected to the campus Police so if a door is open for more than the allowed time (it's wicked short) then an alarm is sent to Police. The data will show the last person to swipe their card...you see where I am headed. This is serious business.

My key ring is getting lighter - now all I have are keys to the car, my house and suite at work. And guaranteed, I'll still forget where I put them.

The Hills are Alive

I've been out of town on a much needed (as my office mates will attest) vacation and spent a chunk of the morning yesterday walking the construction site with my team member Roberto.

And look what we saw - the north hillside has been cleared (thanks to the goats) and what was once overgrown with nasty scrub, weeds and...well... crappy plants....is being transformed into a marvelous landscape. It was so cool to see a small herd of bobcats whipping up, down and all around this area - moving dirt, placing rock and prepping the area for plantings.

Thanks to the talents of Ken Saiki Design and the good folks in the campus office of Landscape Planning, the view to the north will be simply glorious.

If a tree falls in the woods...

...chances are it will be used on the roof terrace for the School of Human Ecology.

The designer has sourced the wood for the benches that will grace this stunning space by using a combination of fallen trees and fallen or no-longer-used utility poles. The wood will come from Northern Michigan, is white oak which is indigenous to the Midwest.