Construction Blog

The Last Post

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:42:41 PST

I’ve been meaning to write a final post of this construction blog for months, but without the incentive of almost daily change I simply haven’t gotten around to it.

Today is the third day of Winter term, 2009, and the Harrington Learning Commons, Sobrato Technology Center, and Orradre Library has been open for nine months. We believe it’s been a huge success! There’s energy in the building all the time its open (OK, less so at 7:30 am than at 4:00 pm or 9:00 pm). More than 600,000 people have come through the library security gate in two academic terms and a summer session. The collaborative rooms are heavily booked from about the third week of each term through finals (I’ve included a screen capture of the room reservations from the final exam period of Spring 2008). We’ve hosted a number of special events in the Saint Clare Room, the viewing and taping rooms and, indeed, the whole facility (election night, 2008). Faculty have used the space for creative programming, such as the Friday evening film series, and they’re even holding office hours here. And the building earned a 2008 Spotlight Award from ProAV Magazine for the “Best Educational AV Design.”

At the same time, there are a number of things we’re working on. We’re in the middle of a project to improve temperature and humidity set points and fluctuation in the Archives and Special Collection vault. We’ve just signed a contract for additional display cases for the Exhibit Area, and are looking forward to mounting our first exhibit once they arrive. We’re still working on balancing the HVAC system, and dealing with building pressure issues to make sure the exterior doors close when they should. And there’s been a learning curve with operational issues, like staffing of the Information Commons desk, how to make use of the flexibility designed into the Training and Instruction rooms, exploiting the capabilities of the digital signage system in communicating to clients, and how to effectively support the many groups that use our facilities for special events.

We’ll be working on some of these issues for awhile (I don’t think we’ll ever be able to say the building is “finished”). We’ll be posting some photos of the building, and will try to keep documenting significant happenings here on the building web site (http://www.scu.edu/lctcl/).

But it’s been a wonderful experience helping create a fantastic resource for the university. Thanks for sharing the journey with us.

Ron

Weeks of June 16, 23 and 30 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:44:09 PST

Longer times between reports. I was traveling the week of June 23, and didn’t have time to get an earlier report out before I left.

The really big news is that we’ve experienced some water intrusion through conduits on the south side of the building the lower level, both in the public spaces and in the Archives and Special Collections vault. These are NOT the kind of water intrusions through the floor and walls that we experienced in the old Orradre building. Rather, they come from poorly sealed data and electrical conduits that serve as paths through the foundation for water from outside the building.

The leak in the public spaces came in through a data conduit, as a result of water accumulating in a wiring vault out in the grassy area to the south of the building, we think because of a broken sprinkler pipe. Once the water was pumped out of the vault the leak stopped. So, in addition to sealing the conduits more thoroughly, we’ll need to come up with some way to monitor the water level in that vault and empty it. The leak in the Archives vault area was through electrical conduits. Those have all been resealed, but the contractor is still searching for the source of the leak (a little digging near the foundation on the south of the building, some more a little further out).

Also outside, the landscaping contractor gave up on the sick palm tree coming back to life. I came in Wednesday morning and there were several workmen clearing out a hole where that palm had been planted, and it had already been moved to a trailer parked at the bend where The Alameda becomes Market Street. There was a replacement Palm waiting out there (notice in the third photo the severed top of the old palm which they had to saw off to get it to fit on the trailer). The new palm was planted and looking good long before noon.

We also got what should be the last of the furniture, a number of stools that go with the cocktail height tables that are near some of the windows on the second and third floors, and near the drop-in computer lab on the second. The manufacturer stopped all production about six weeks before the furniture was to be delivered in March and we’ve been waiting ever since. The tables haven’t gone unused, however. I’ve seen more than one person move the tables next to the windows and sit on the wide window sills, which put the table at just the right height for using a laptop.

Weeks of June 2 and 9, 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:48:16 PST

This is a two-week report, still concentrating on the interior of the building. Spring quarter finals started June 9 so the building has been really busy. We are open 24 hours during exams, so we opened at 9:00 am Sunday morning and didn’t close again until 2:00 am Friday. We staff these extended hours with volunteers and students, so I spent Tuesday night from 11:00 pm Tuesday to 7:00 am Wednesday in the building as the adult of record, just in case anything went wrong. I took these photos that evening.

The first picture is of a pair of students who had created a little nest on the third floor. Each of them had a blanket to keep them warm, they’d rearranged one of the sofas so each of them had a backrest, and they’d brought a couple throw pillows in from one of the terraces to provide a little more cushion. I had seen the young woman (actually, I recognized her blanket!) Monday morning when I came in to work. She was curled up sleeping in the booth on the second floor near our administrative offices. I thought briefly about waking her (the first exam was starting in about an hour) but decided not to.

The second photo is of a corner on the first floor in the New Book Nook. These five students had moved a few pieces of furniture to create a dense study area and were there all night, working steadily away. This picture was taken from the landing on the stairs to the second floor.

The third picture was taken about 3:00 am in one of the group study rooms on the Lower level. There had been a group of about eight women in that room the first time I took a count at 11:00 pm, and they looked then like they’d been in place for quite awhile. I finally asked them if I could take their picture after the group had dwindled somewhat, but it shows how the students are using the rooms. They all had their laptops out and working, they were using the whiteboard walls to work out problems, and they were really working hard.

The last photo is a real example of how students move furniture around to create an environment that’s right for them. The bench seating runs around the base of the stair down to the Living Room. I had expected that to be a very popular, casual seating area, but it’s not very heavily used. But this night several students had moved tablet arm chairs under the stairs, along with a couple ottomen. When I first came by there were four or five students seated in this space, but by the time I got back with the camera they were gone, and only their preferred seating pattern stayed behind.

We take a head count every hour when we’re open during exams. The night I worked there were more than 250 students here working at 2:00 am, our normal closing time. Even at the lowest point of the night (at 6:00 am) there were 100 students in the building, and some were coming in for some last-minute study before the 9:00 am exam started.

Week of May 26 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:41:09 PST

Inside we’ve got some more art installed. There was a bust of Saint Thomas More in the Orradre building that had been donated to the university, with a requirement that it always be displayed in the library. We found the perfect place in the new building, at the foot of the east public stair, where you can get a great view of it from the lower level, but also see it from all levels in the stairwell, as the second photo shows.

We’re getting toward the end of the term and the building is starting to buzz. I took a shot of the upper level Information Commons on Sunday afternoon June 1. There was (and there almost always is) a lot of activity. I’m particularly pleased by the way students will gather around a single system to work together on a project, like the pair in the foreground are doing. We tried to create work space that would allow this to happen and I’ve seen as many as five people around one computer in this space. Notice the guy has pulled a tablet arm chair up to the workstation to provide more comfortable seating.

We also finally have the hanging signs up for the IC service point and the circulation desk, as you can see in the last picture.

Week of May 19 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 18:03:18 PST

Outside the landscapers have removed the last fronds from the palm that I mentioned a few weeks ago didn’t look healthy. I’m told they say with the fronds off the palm can rest and will come back strong. I’m skeptical.

Inside we moved Fr. Sullivan’s mural of the history of the Valley from its temporary location in Loyola Hall onto the space that was specifically designed for it in the multifunction area outside the Saint Clare Room. It really looks quite nice there. I’m happy we chose that instead of some of the other locations in the building we had considered. There are a few other art pieces that we need to decide locations for, but I think that’s something that will wait for summer. I know the President wants to be involved in those decisions.

The architects had a professional photographer here taking images of the building all this week. There was a team of three and they got some really great shots. The photographer had an interesting camera that I have to ask him more about when he comes back, probably after graduation.

We’ve also been doing quite a few tours for groups from other universities. Mostly local places (Stanford a couple times this week, UC Santa Cruz a couple weeks ago, San Jose State in a couple weeks) but this week we hosted a group from the National University of Singapore! They have a wonderful opportunity due to acquiring a significant amount of land, and they’re really interested in creating innovative learning spaces.

Week of May 12 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:41:03 PST

Only one interior photo to show this week. The first major event in the Saint Clare Room was a presentation in late April by the mayor of San Jose about his environmental initiatives for the city, which was a set-up theatre style for about 100 people that went off very well and didn’t crowd the room at all. This week we had our second major event, a donor reception for the Center for Science, Technology and Society. This was the first time we’d used the “prefunction” area, which was set up for a reception, followed by a presentation in the Saint Clare Room itself. So I took a picture of the reception area, but I couldn’t talk them into a glass of wine.

I’m told this event had been scheduled for a major donor’s private home, but after a tour of the building he suggested using the Saint Clare Room instead.

Monitoring the group study room usage is going OK. The first few times through we deleted LOTS of reservations, but students seemed to learn to follow the new guidelines fairly quickly and now we don’t have to delete many reservations at all. It may have helped that Law School exams were finishing, and Law students had created much of the demand for those spaces.

Week of May 5 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:35:15 PST

Nothing new to report on the building exterior.

Inside they’re still delivering a few pieces of furniture. The desk and credenza for the service point in the Living Room, intended primarily to help people who were using the microform collections but also to provide first level technical support for people in the lower level information commons, finally got delivered. I don’t know what took so long, since it was a floor sample. We’re still waiting for the stools for the café tables on the second and third floor. Steelcase postponed construction for that model and we don’t have a delivery date yet.

They also got the ceiling and lights in the room that looks out into the ARS. That was the room that had been hidden for nearly three years since the ARS was finished and, when we opened it up, discovered the lighting that was on the plans had never been built. It’s been open to the public but really dark. Now you can actually see in the room.

We’ve been kicking around what to do about the group study room reservation situation for awhile. Friday I sent a message to all students outlining some new guidelines for reservations: four hour maximum time, reservations must have a student name and matching SCU email address associated with them, no consecutive reservations for the same room by the same person, no reservation of two rooms at the same time by one person. I also mentioned that anyone we could identify as having deleted someone else’s reservation would be banned from reserving a study room for one term. I got a few messages back thanking us for doing this, and one from someone who said these were great rules but it was unfair to punish someone who had deleted another person’s reservation since “that hadn’t specifically been prohibited” and besides, there had “developed a consensus on campus that anyone who wasn’t smart enough to password protect their reservation deserved to lose it.” I guess competence, conscience and compassion doesn’t actually get ingrained in every one of our students.

We’re enforcing the new rules manually since we can’t do it through the room wizards. We’ll see how it goes.

Week of April 28 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:38:51 PST

This week I actually have a couple exterior things to write about. One of the four palm trees that were planted in the lawn south of the building looks a little sickly. The fronds are mostly brown, instead of bright green, and I worry about its longevity. I understand palms are relatively delicate and don’t like to be replanted. We moved four palms out of the construction site area more than 18 months ago and they are all flourishing, and the other three that we newly planted look great, so I’m hoping this one comes back.

We’ve also had the university’s “bird man” around the building this week. He’s the guy who helps us keep the pigeons from making a mess. They’ve been stringing the wire that you see in the third photo around the building. This is on the edge of one of the public terraces on the third floor. I think the two wires carry a low electrical voltage, so the pigeons get a slight shock if they contact both of them, but I should really find out how they work rather than spreading bad information.

The third photo I took in the lower level. This is one of the laptop chairs that’s been pushed into the stack area (it actually is kind of hiding behind a pillar) and someone has taken a second tablet arm and attached on the other arm of the chair, to create more horizontal surface. We’ve seen lots of changes in furniture location and combinations, but I hadn’t seen this before.

The big uproar this week is about the group study rooms. We made the Room Wizard reservation systems available online last week, and now many of the group rooms are reserved for single 12 – 15 hour blocks, many by Law students studying for finals. This, of course, means lots of students aren’t able to get into a room. The Wizards don’t allow us to limit the length of the reservation. I had asked students to be considerate of others and limit the length of their reservations, but it seems appealing to common sense and courtesy isn’t working. We’ve even had some reports of reservations that weren’t password protected being deleted, and the room being reserved by others. We’re still talking about the best way to deal with this.

The fourth photo is one of my favorite spots in the building. You can see all four floors from this spot, although the picture only shows three. Anyone know where this is?

Week of April 21 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:38:12 PST

I think I’m going to stop posting the exterior shots unless something substantive has changed (which is probably unlikely at this point). You can notice in the southwest corner shot that the Engineering School has made the grass areas to the south and west of the Learning Commons part of the “field work” for their surveying courses.

Inside the changes that have occurred are usually relatively minor and hard to see. We continue to work on the punch list items, AV integration is moving closer to completion (my guess now is around May 9), and the building is still buzzing. I’ve posted a photo of the Information Commons service point mid-afternoon, which used to be a really slow time in the Orradre building but is relatively busy here.

I was invited to a Student Senate meeting Thursday evening. I think it’s really great that the students care enough about the building to want to quiz me a bit. Most of their questions were about things that should have been in place at opening but weren’t (we need more trash and recycling bins [distributed Tuesday] and trash cans in the collaborative rooms [first batch distributed Thursday], when are there going to be bike racks [temporary racks up now, first permanent rack up in about two weeks], noise levels [particularly through the doors of the collaborative rooms], elevator chime noise [need different chime set], automatic light shutoff on the terraces [they’re going off at 10:00 pm leaving everyone in the dark – working on proper programming]). They also asked if we could ban Law students from the building! This seems to be motivated by the fact that non-Law students can’t use the Law Library, but we’ve always welcomed Law students because we’re the university library, so the answer is no.

One interesting event that I hope isn't typical is that our network manager accidentally got a copy of an invitation from one of our Room Wizard scheduling devices to an "Amazing rock your socks off library party. Yeah." in one of our collaborative rooms. Not exactly the kind of use we envisioned when we designed the building.

This is the end of the fourth week of spring term and mid-term exams are coming up. It will be interesting to see whether use of the building increases.

Week of April 14 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:45:04 PST

No really visible changes outside except that they’ve placed the last sod in the area just east of the ARS, as the fourth picture shows, so our landscaping should be complete.

Inside, the big news is we’ve started to pull the materials that are going to be on the open shelves out of the ARS. The fifth photo shows the area right next to the stairs to the Living Room, which now actually looks like it’s part of a library! We’ll be working on filling the rest of the shelves through most of the summer.

There aren’t a lot of visible changes elsewhere on the interior, but the students continue to make themselves at home. I took a picture of one student napping on the sofas in the Living Room, while two others studied around her. We’re also finally putting out some of the things that should have been there when the building opened, like trash and recycling containers through the public areas. We’ll probably be working on those kinds of things for another couple weeks.

Week of April 7 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:12:02 PST

Almost all of the exterior construction is finished. The last bit of exterior landscaping is being installed east of the ARS, as you can see in the fourth photo.

Inside, we’re still dealing with all kinds of issues, even though the building has been in use for almost two weeks. Power and data connections for some of the tables and carrels aren’t finalized yet, and some of the lighting for the carrels hasn’t arrived so those aren’t installed everywhere. The audio-visual equipment installation probably won’t be finished until the end of this month, or perhaps even later. Most of the AV installations are pretty complex (interestingly enough, so people will find the equipment easy to use) and programming the control systems is taking a long time. However, students seem to be able to use the simpler technologies (like the displays) in the collaborative rooms without any troubles. I even walked into the video conference room on the second floor to find a student playing with the cameras in the front and back of the room (he had them aimed at each other producing a sort of infinitely recursive image).

The biggest annoyance has been door locks and door alarms. The locking plan for the building is also complex since we need to provide a variety of levels of control to access different spaces, mostly in the staff areas of the building. So some locks still aren’t programmed and some staff who should be able to get into particular areas can’t.

The door alarms associated with entry to the staff stairwells are also a real problem. The intention is to allow staff to use the two stairwells on the north side of the building and the one at the southeast corner to quickly get between floors and to avoid clogging the two public stairwells. So all staff are supposed to be able to override the emergency exit alarms with their ID cards. That seems to work, but not everyone remembers to swipe their card (the doors weren’t labeled so we have home-made signs up) which set off the alarm. And some of the doors seem not to close tightly which, coupled with what seems to be very tight tolerances on the door sensors, makes the door think its been propped open and sets off the alarm.

Just normal teething problems, but they are still annoying for both staff and the people using the building. Another example, we didn’t get trash or recycling containers in the building until late this week.

Building use seems just fine. There are lots of people in the building and they seem to have made themselves right at home. We’ve had a few complaints about noise, although everything seems fairly quiet when I’ve been in most parts of the building. Maybe I need to start coming in at midnight.

The last photo shows the soccer bleachers that are now on the former interim library site. I'm amazed at how quickly all traces of that building have been wiped from campus.

Week of March 31 2008 - A Learning Resort

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 19:19:07 PST

We’re open to the public!

This has been a LONG time coming. I’m not posting the standard exterior views this week, nothing is different (there are a few changes, some final landscaping and closing the door that was put on the east side of the ARS so we could use it during construction) but nothing major.

But the opening! The building was dressed up with a balloon arch in front of the main entrance with a lot of people gathered in front, and Bucky Bronco and the Pep Band provided some excitement. Provost Lucia Gilbert acted as mistress of ceremonies and gave a short presentation, Fr. Locatelli (introduced to chants of “Papa Loc, Papa Loc”) talked briefly and repeated the dedication prayer from the March 14^th dedication, and Congressman Mike Honda (who helped secure Congressionally Directed grants for the facility) also talked. There was a ribbon-cutting ceremony, the doors opened, and everyone streamed inside.

The IS staff who were in the building at the opening said it looked like a tidal wave of people coming down the hall. The next set of photos are some I took of people early in the afternoon as they were roaming around the building. The organizing committee arranged for SCU music students to provide some background sound from the living room (I talked to the keyboard player later in the day who promised to play all the time if I’d just put a grand piano down in there). Mostly people walked around and tried to discover all the building’s features, but there were a few people who came in and started serious studying. Close to 5:00 I walked around and looked at what people had written on the walltalkers walls in the collaborative rooms, and took a photo of one appreciative comment among many.

I was away from campus Tuesday and Wednesday, and when I came back Thursday it was clear the students had taken to heart the idea of rearranging furniture to suit their needs at the moment. For example, every piece of furniture in the living room except the heavy sofas had been moved. I also found that the Saint Clare statue was now installed in her room.

The quote at the beginning of this was something I overheard on one of the third floor terraces. A student was sitting there, looking out over the campus and talking to a few friends: “This is a Learning Resort!” We might have to make that our alternative name.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this possible: our donors, the architects, consultants and construction people, and most of all to the wonderful IS staff who’ve worked for more than a dozen years to make this building a reality!

Week of March 24 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:30:24 PST

These photos were taken on Sunday March 30, the day before the building opening. No noticeable changes on the exterior of the building.

On the interior the big news was the arrival starting Tuesday of the last major furnishings components, the more traditional library tables and carrels. There was an onsite team that really worked hard to get the shipment (several semi trailers worth of stuff) unloaded and set up. All the furniture was shipped “knocked down” (think of setting up something from Ikea multiplied by 100 with much heavier components). By Friday everything was set up except the big four-person tables, and they were missing essential components. Those finally arrived Friday afternoon and the installation team worked really late to get those set up for the opening. They worked too late to do much cleanup, so I spent part of Sunday morning vacuuming sawdust off the floor on the lower level.

Other small shipments of furniture also came in over the week, like the photo of the “beanbag-like” chairs. I had been pushing for real bean bags but then was told they were referred to as “love sacks” (literally, that’s the name) and decided that probably wouldn’t fit in the library. These are more structured but provide some of the same feel.

The crew from Bon Appetit was in setting up the café. It’s named Sunstream because that was the name of the house construction company in San Francisco whose success led to the creation of the Gellert Foundation, who donated money to the building for the naming rights and graciously agreed to that name.

The last weekend was a real push by IT staff to get the computers into the information commons and the training and instruction rooms. People worked all day and well into the night Friday (they had just broken for pizza when I was leaving about 7:30) on setting up the Dells and Macs in the information commons and were back at it when I came in on Saturday. Installing the Macs in the training and instruction rooms took two 10 – 12 hour days on Saturday and Sunday. A lot of work but they’re a big part of what we promised the campus and we wanted them to at least be functional for the opening.

I’ve included a photo of the site where the interim library stood. In less than a week that building was dismantled, the trailers hauled away, and the site ready to install bleachers for the Earthquake games.

Also on Sunday we took more than 50 librarians and IT management people from other AJCU universities through the building (that’s why I was vacuuming). They were at USF for their annual meeting and we jumped at the chance to show them our new space. Everyone loved the building, which we took as a good omen for Monday.

Week of March 17 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:55:54 PST

Moving week for Information Services! We moved all the Archives and Special Collections that were in the interim library late the previous week, and this week was IS staff and all the remaining materials that were in the interim library, like current periodicals. This was also exam week, so the interim library stuff moved last so we minimized impact on students studying.

You can see one of the moving trucks in the first photo but, again, not much exterior change is visible. One thing that has changed is that the trees that were planted in the area south of the building are starting to bud out. They had looked absolutely dormant since they’d been planted while all the other deciduous trees were full of leaves and I’d worried that they might not have made it through the planting. But the fourth photo shows they’re starting to show green.

Inside, a lot more of the furniture is now in place, and more of the AV technology is being installed, although it will probably be mid to late April before we’re done with that. The multimedia lab is now starting to look like what we’d envisioned, a group-oriented classroom in the round. The patio furniture is up on the third floor public terraces, although one is missing the cushions. And they’re starting to create the pedestal for the woodcarving of Saint Clare in her room.

But the move was the big thing. Staff moves, from Leavey Events Center, the IT building and the “IT annex” in the former Bank of America building on Lafayette, and Ricard and Varsi for Media Services, kept everyone busy for the first part of the week. The movers were very efficient, and most of us had managed to pack up our offices before Monday morning (I started packing Sunday the 16^th, finished the morning of Monday the 17^th, and got moved that day). But because of the compressed move time much of our infrastructure wasn’t ready. I got a phone on my desk Monday but didn’t have dial tone for a couple days (blessed relief!) and only had wireless networking for a couple days. Some IS staff were without services for longer (something about taking care of the boss :-). No one’s fault, just too much to do in a very short period of time.

The next four pictures are of the move out of the interim library. We started early Friday morning with the expectation it would take all weekend. But the movers were really quick, worked nearly 12 straight hours (without taking lunch, I think) and got everything into the new building in one day, although not everything in its final location. As we were moving out furniture, books and computers, there were crews stripping out the data cabling we installed when the interim was built. At one time data cabling was simply “abandoned in place” but the price of copper is now so high that it’s cost effective (not to mention ecologically responsible) to recycle everything. By then end of Friday workers were already separating the trailers and preparing them to be hauled away. There was real pressure to get the site cleaned up because bleachers need to be installed where the trailers were for Earthquakes home games.

The final picture is the banner that was hung from the terrace outside the Saint Clare Room announcing the grand opening at noon on March 31!

Week of March 10 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:32:39 PST

This was a really exciting week for the building. There was a dedication ceremony Friday afternoon, with more than 600 people in attendance and brief talks by the major donors whose names are on the building.

But first the mundane things.

Outside there’s no noticeable change, although there is one change of something that had been bugging me. Through some oversight, two glass panels on the southeast corner, up near the roof, were installed with clear glass instead of frosted glass. That meant when you looked up you saw the steel beam that was in that corner and the roof drainpipe that ran down next to it. That’s now been fixed!

Early in the week the statue was installed on the pedestal under the tower. This statue was created by an SCU student, Kim Munson, as an entry in a campus art contest last year. The President liked it so much he insisted we find a place for it in the Learning Commons, and then found a donor to cover the cost. Kim’s original sculpture was made of wood and was about 18” high. A foundry in Monterey laser-scanned the original to create a 3-D computer model, then blew up the model to about six feet high and cast it in bronze.

A lot of the furniture is moving in, although we’re two weeks away from getting the more traditional library tables and chairs. I’ve included a photo of the furniture setup in part of the living room, a different style of furniture at the top of the west stairs to the second floor, and the tables in the archives and special collections reading room. Those tables were originally in the Varsi library, then were moved to Orradre, and now are in the new library. We had them refinished (and had to go with a darker finish than we originally wanted to cover repairs of some of the graffiti they found when they stripped the tables down) and they look so good we’re now thinking about getting more of these redone, if we can find the right place in the building.

But the big event of the week was the dedication ceremony Friday afternoon. The construction team scrambled to get the donor recognition signage up at the entryway, and development, media services, IT and an outside consultant worked feverishly to put some video and images up on the two LCD displays that flank the donor recognition. We finished that Friday morning (just-in-time recognition!). Fr. Locatelli spoke briefly, then Mike Orradre spoke on behalf of the Orradre Family, John A. Sobrato spoke on behalf of the Sobrato Family, and finally Lorry Lokey spoke. Lorry is the major donor to the project, and what he had chosen to name the Learning Commons portion of the building was a big secret – I’m told that, up until a few days before the event only three people knew what that name would be. Lorry surprised everyone, and especially his long-time companion Joanne Harrington, by naming the building after her. Much applause, happiness all around, and our new building finally has its name: the Harrington Learning Commons, Sobrato Technology Center, and Orradre Library.

Week of March 3 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:14:29 PST

These photos were taken Sunday the 9^th. I can’t see any change from last week on the exterior shots. If you can, please let me know via comments.

We keep making progress on the interior, though. The fourth photo shows the compact shelving that’s now installed and operational in the archives and special collections vault area on the lower level. That shelving is electric powered, since there will be a lot of movement going on, with many ranks of shelving to be moved at any one time to get access to the desired materials. Outside in the public areas the compact shelving that will hold government documents and reference materials is manual (actually, the vendor calls it “mechanically assisted”) because it’s more intuitive to use and there are only a few sections to move to open an aisle. Also on the lower level, the wooden end caps for the book shelves are on-site and leaning up against the stacks, ready to be installed.

On the upper floors, the café area is almost complete. The built-in equipment is installed. They need to bring in a chilled display rack for bottled drink and things like sandwiches, and they need to install the menu board. The furniture is in place in all the conference rooms. The one in the eighth photo is on the third floor in the staff area where the administrative systems people are located, and will be reserved for use by Information Services staff. Finally, I put in a picture of the finished paneling in the Saint Clare Room, which is really rich-looking in person. They’re fabricating a stand for the statue, but I don’t know when that will be installed and the statue will move from St. Joseph’s.

We start moving into the building Monday the 11^th, pulling all the archives and special collections materials that are in the interim library and putting them into the compact shelving in the vault!

Week of February 25 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:29:08 PST

This week’s big outside change also involves landscaping. They untied the fronds of the four palm trees that were planted in the lawn area to the south of the building. You can see this in the second photo.

Inside, the cushions and tables are now in place on the bench that keeps people from walking under the stairs on the lower level, as the fourth picture shows. On the third floor, the sliding walls in the open collaborative space have been installed. This space is open above and all the furniture can be easily reconfigured, but sometimes it may be necessary to separate one group from another and these walls can be pulled out to divide all or part of the open space. Also on the third floor, the cabinet makers have started installing the wood surrounds on the exterior door to the Saint Clare Room, from the terrace. This photo doesn’t do justice to the richness and luster of the wood.

I had an interesting experience when I was in the building taking these pictures on Sunday. I was walking around in the data center and could hear faint voices. I was pretty certain I was alone in the building, much less in the data center, so I couldn’t figure out where the voices were coming from. But I finally found a television playing over in the area where our new cable TV system is being installed. This upgrade to the cable TV is really needed. We purchased Scientific Atlanta gear, which is really good quality, and they’ve had an installation team on-site for about a week. I took pictures of both the front of the racks (with the TV) and the back. That’s a really clean cabling job, with everything bundled and tie-wrapped (now I know why the installation charge was high :-). I wish I could say that we’d done as well when we moved the servers into the data center, but we were a little too rushed, so I won’t be taking pictures of the back of those racks.

Week of February 18 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:16:44 PST

I’m running a couple weeks behind on the blog. There are days when it seems like the last month of getting the building ready to open takes more work than the preceding 18. I’ll try to catch up this weekend.

These pictures were taken Saturday February 23. The big news on the outside of the building is that the grass is in almost everywhere. I’m sure they’ll finish early next week. You can see the area left to complete in the second picture. The second picture also gives a ground-level view of the grass next to the building, and the fourth picture is a view looking down from one of the third floor terraces.

Inside everyone is working at a breakneck pace but most of the changes are really incremental. An example of that is in the data center, where we’ve now put doors on most of the racks, as you can see in the fifth photo. It’s really kind of cool to see all the equipment glowing behind the black mesh covers of the doors (mesh so airflow isn’t impeded). Looking at it reminds me of the VU meters bouncing behind the smoked Plexiglas cover of the Teac 4010S reel-to-reel deck I had in the early ‘70s. (Hey, don’t laugh! A party, dim lights, a little wine, Cream on the deck and those meters peaking – it was magic.)

One area where progress is not incremental is the Archives and Special Collections vault area on the lower level, where the compact shelving is about half erected, but none of the electrical connections are in yet for the motors that will drive the shelves.

Another area is the Archives and Special Collections Reading Room and Exhibit Area on the third floor. I think this is the space that’s farthest from completion and it’s seemed that nothing was going on there. They’ve now started the woodwork around the entrance and the exhibit cases that are built into the wall, as the last photo shows. The wall will be plate glass, and the exhibit cases should look almost like they’re floating. Not a lot of progress on the Reading Room portion yet.

Week of February 11 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:16:36 PST

These pictures were taken Saturday February 16.

I sound like a broken record (for those of you of a certain age, records were round flat devices made of plastic intended to play back music – they sometimes cracked and caused the sound to loop continuously on playback :-) – not much change on the exterior shots. In the third photo you can see that the circular area in the foreground now has sod in place over the turf block. There’s also a JLG machine being used for exterior painting parked by the parking structure.

Inside, things seem to be moving at a breakneck pace. The fourth photo gives a little better view of the furniture on the lower level Information Commons, with some of the collaborative study rooms behind. The furnishing contractor is starting to connect the built-in wiring in the computer workstations to the floor boxes, which is requiring some repositioning of the floor boxes (pull up the carpet tiles, rearrange the floor tiles until the boxes are in the right location, reinstall the carpet tiles). The next shot is a close-up of one of the Room Wizards that we’re going to use for scheduling the conference rooms. Some of them are mounted on the wall by the door but this one, like most, is mounted on the glass side light of the collaborative room. These can be accessed via the web, show the reservations on their screen, and have controls to allow an instant reservation if the room is free. Also on the lower level, the compact shelving for the Archives and Special Collections storage vault is going in a few days ahead of schedule. On the third floor the paneling in the Saint Clare Room is about half done, as the seventh picture shows. Notice that the correct clear glass is now in the frame that will be behind Saint Clare’s statue.

But the big event this week was the move of the data center from the IT building to the Learning Commons, Technology Center and Library. We’ve been planning for this for a long time. Systems started to be shut down about 9:00 pm Friday night, and we had a contractor on site to actually move the servers and storage systems, and then started systems up. Things didn’t go as smoothly as we hoped, with a four-hour delay overnight caused by a long PeopleSoft backup process and a fire false alarm at 2:30 am in the new building that caused a half-hour evacuation until the fire department could come and verify the false alarm. The eighth photo was taken Saturday morning and shows part of the IT staff group that participated in the move. All of these people had been up all night and some had been up more than 36 hours when this photo was taken, and they all ended up working until about 7:00 pm Saturday, when there were only a few systems left to bring online. The last picture shows more staff working to install the equipment in the racks in the data center. But there was a power strip that overloaded and tripped a circuit breaker Sunday and it took most of Sunday to fix the problems that caused, then most of Monday to get most of the remaining systems up. That’s why we planned the move for a three-day weekend.

There’s a traditional rubric about IT stuff, the 80-20 rule, that says 20% of the work requires 80% of the effort and that held true in this case. It was Wednesday before all the systems were restored. IT staff, as well as one person from the Library and a couple from the Access Card office, were heroes and heroines – they put in very long hours (10 – 12 hour days in addition to the all-nighter) even though they’d been working nights and weekends for awhile to prestage equipment and move in advance the services we could.

Week of February 4 2008

rdanielson@scu.edu (Ron Danielson) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:41:42 PST

Very little change in the exterior that can be seen in these photos. If you look very closely you can see there’s turf block inside the circle in the foreground of the third picture (that’s interlocking plastic hexagons that go under grass in an area that’s a fire lane, so the fire engines can drive on it without sinking). That’s about all. They’re still working on the outside, though. They’ve started to repaint the entire north side, which one of the architects said looked like it had six different shades of tan on it. And they’re continually working on landscaping, you just can’t see it.

Inside, it’s a totally different story. The building is coming together very quickly, yet there still seems to be so much that needs to get done. The fourth picture is the semi that delivered the first of the furniture that will go in the Information Commons on the first floor and lower level. I apologize for the image quality, I took this with my Blackberry when I stumbled on the truck on Monday as I was heading back to my office. The fifth photo shows some of the furniture that was in place in the lower level by Sunday. The arms hold the computer monitors and allow someone to position the screen where it’s most convenient for them.

They’re also making great progress on the cabinetry in the building. The service desk for the Information Commons has arrived and is starting to be installed, the counter for the café is in place (they drape moving pads over the counters to protect them), and the service point for the Father Norman Martin S.J. Archives and Special Collections Reading Room is starting to be installed. The Reading Room and the Exhibit Area seem to have the most work yet to be done.

The Saint Clare room has the wood paneling starting to go up but I couldn’t get a good picture. Maybe next week when more of it is done.