Sunday, May 8, 2016

Got Wood?


No, aliens have not landed on the plaza near the Fine Arts Center.

Just a cool combination of Art and Education designed to draw attention to the nifty new UMass Design Building going up nearby, using the same old fashioned but updated wood construction method.

 Design Building:  built with wood on what was once a parking lot
Both Art project and Design Building blend in well to their surroundings
Design Building scheduled for completion Spring, 2017

14 comments:

Dr. Ed said...

Got matches?

Anonymous said...

I like the creativity.

Dr. Ed said...

No, CAN 4:08, just someone who once tried to maintain civility on that campus and hence who knows what will inevitably happen should that so-called "art" remain there in September. Anyone remember when PPlant didn't have any sawhorses left because all of those were burned by persons (I argue not all "students") waiting to get into a BBall game? Or the various arson plagues of T-6? Or various other things...

It is you who is irresponsible.


Anonymous said...

Well, Ed, It survived the last weekend before finals. Hard to imagine there's ever a weekend where the students care less about their behavior.

You have view of the students and the school in general that just isn't accurate today. Reevaluate.

Dr. Ed said...

Reevaluate my ***, it hadn't been there long enough for (a) the young men to discuss it amongst themselves, (b)for the young "ladies" to hear them doing this (and also observe it themselves, and (c) for the young men to conclude that the young "ladies" would be impressed with their destruction of the same.

Remember what I have said about one cute girl saying "don't you dare throw that beer bottle" -- at a police officer whom she both knows personally & respects (as opposed to fears) -- being far more protective of officer safety than any level of riot gear?

Look at "elevator surfing" -- it was done to impress the women....

Last weekend before finals is too late for anything new to happen -- or maybe those without a MEd in STUAF don't know that.... Whatever.

Anonymous said...

There are some real lefty flakes, posing as prof's, that will work in that building. Building architecture for dummies by dummies.

Dr. Ed said...

Larry, I'm going to add one other thing as I know you have daughters.

When I saw the video of Jason Vassel slicing & dicing those two unarmed men (who were huddling in a far corner of the lobby when he attacked them),what struck me most was the female faces in the open (otherwise locking/locked) hallway doors. The young "ladies" who were implicitly (if not explicitly) encouraging him toward violence.

Any woman who cared about him would have stood in front of him -- particularly after he went back to his room for the knife -- and told him not to go. Would have stood in front of him and made him physically pick her up and move her.

The guys your girls want to be associated with will respect them for that. By contrast, much of the stupidity that occurs at UMass occurs in front of (and possibly because of) an appreciative female audience.

Dr. Ed said...

Irresponsible is a university spending like a drunken sailor, a university spending so much on new buildings that folks in Bostob and elsewhere are starting to ask some real questions about its debt.

Dr.Ed said...

Whatever.

Larry, didn't the AFD have to extinguish a burning couch at Townhouse last month?

Anyone ever figure out how it levitated itself out of one of the condos and then managed to set itself on fire?

......perhaps it was something "irresponsible" I said?

"Arise, ye couches & sofas of Amherst, arise I say! Shake of the chains of gravity, levitate thyself upward and out into the dooryard. Arise, I say -- self-immolate thyself I say, all praise to Pastafarian."


Larry Kelley said...

Actually there was a kid in District Court yesterday charged with burning a couch at Townehouse over the weekend, but I'm pretty sure he does not read the Comments section all that closely.

Anonymous said...

And you 9:07, are a crashing bore. Free country, Ed. Say whatever you like.

Anonymous said...

Of note, Umass has traditionally had the top Wood Science program in the nation.

Hoadley forever.

Anonymous said...

Ed, the only ones questioning the university's debt are the people who never want to invest into things like UMass. Fact is UMass is a growing institution. They need and will continue to need the facilities they are building. What they've built so far, especially the science complex, has already done so much for the school.

The building boom was done responsibly with manageable debt at a time when construction on these types of buildings-and their debt-is relatively cheap. They've also begun to chip away at the maintenance backlog. These two initiatives give the school beautiful and functional buildings and help make sure the ones that are there last a long time.

Dr. Ed said...

"Ed, the only ones questioning the university's debt are the people who never want to invest into things like UMass."

In other words, those who don't want to get stuck with the bill.

“The pace of debt increase has far surpassed the pace of asset growth,” said Kimberly Tuby, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service who specializes in higher education in Massachusetts."

"Moody's and other credit rating agencies last month gave UMass solid ratings, but it pointed out several red flags that suggest the school could be in trouble down the road if it does not successfully raise enough money to pay off the new debt."

"Other rating agencies cite concerns about enrollment that did not grow at the rate the university expected, and fund-raising that lags compared with similar schools across the country."

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/03/21/after-building-boom-umass-sizes-debt/rnbYFtGVZsp11mZn9buJAM/story.html