�ֲ��ý Communications Office – News

Campus Construction Update: April 12, 2019

Doug Hubley — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 20:31:17 +0000

Campus Construction Update spent a few minutes on March 28 watching the obliteration of the houses in which we had worked until last fall: 141 and 145 Nichols St., the former home of the �ֲ��ý Communications Office.

On that sunny morning we were part of a small group that included, at various times, passing staff and students, the treasurer of �ֲ��ý, BCO colleagues, Consigli Construction staff including Superintendent Stacey Harris, and Chris Streifel, the Facility Services project manager overseeing the creation of the �ֲ��ý science building that will occupy the demolition site.

The buildings came down fast, and our timing was not ideal. We pretty much missed the ruination of 145, where the college’s digital communications and design experts once were stationed. But we did arrive in time to watch a Gendron & Gendron Inc. excavator tamp the building’s remains into the cellar hole. Someone sprayed water over the debris to settle the dust as the excavator punched down the wood, siding, and wallboard.

The demolition of 145 Nichols St., March 28, 2019. (Jay Burns/�ֲ��ý College).

The tamping gave the big Volvo a firm place to stand as it moved over to 141. Late for a meeting, we nevertheless stuck around for the start of that operation. It was hard to look away: not just because of our lingering attachment to the houses, but because the excavator made the formidable task of knocking down a building look like cutting an angel food cake.

We perceived a slight chiming of cosmic irony as the excavator took its very first bite of 141 very close to the former Campus Construction Update Penthouse. (We also perceived some regret upon realizing that our 1958 Gibson Les Paul Custom Black Beauty guitar was still in the penthouse, along with our checkbook.)

Mise en place: Here’s a geographical refresher: Opposite Carnegie Science Hall, the site of the new science building is bounded by Campus Avenue on the north; Bardwell and Nichols streets to the east and west; and along the south, a wandering property line.

All that building demolition marked a crescendo, but not an ending, in the process of site preparation that had begun 10 days earlier as Consigli, the firm managing the construction of the science building, began mobilization activities at the site.

Excavators on the science building work site. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

A Basham Tree Service arborist at work high up on the east side of the science building construction site on March 21, 2019. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Seen through Gate A, opening onto Bardwell Street, two excavators rearrange the soil at the science building construction site. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

To improve ground stability and drainage, sitework contractor Gendron & Gendron has removed existing soils from the science building site and replaced them with prepared materials such as the gray crushed stone visible in the middle distance. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

This pit in the southeast corner of the science facility construction site will be a detention pond for unwanted water. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Mobilization got off to a quick start. The site was fenced in by the 19th. Removing trees and brush began the following day and was nearly done by the 21st, with usable lumber salvaged for milling or pulping, depending on the type of tree. Excavators grubbed out tree roots and various pavements as solar-powered seismographs, placed near homes and buildings outside the site perimeter, monitored vibration levels.

With the houses gone on the 28th, their remains joined the outflow of foliage, broken-up pavement, earth, boulders, and other unwanted materials that has kept a fleet of dump trucks buzzing around the site like diesel-powered bees.

And what’s happening now is getting the land itself ready to accommodate all the machines, materials, and humans who will actually build a building. Or, in �ֲ��ý project manager Chris Streifel’s words, “putting in a lot of work that’s needed to be able to do the real work.”

A student checks his phone as he passes the newly fenced-in site of �ֲ��ý’ future science building on March 19, 2019. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

You could also liken this phase to the French culinary term mise en place, the practice of organizing your ingredients and tools before you cook something. But a key difference between the building project and making coq au vin is that Consigli and Gendron & Gendron, the subcontractor executing the site prep, are dealing primarily with dirt.

Much of the soil at the site is mixed with stuff, like clay, organic material, and random soils, that for various reasons makes it unsuitable to build on. “If you see those signs by the roadside asking for clean fill,” says Streifel, “this isn’t it.”

So even before foundation digging gets underway, much of the existing soil is being removed and replaced with materials with known characteristics. And the terrain also needs to be contoured specifically for the project. Therefore, a lot of what’s been happening at the site is, in the simplest sense, just moving dirt around.

In the southeast corner, across Bardwell Street from Chu Hall, a pit has been dug that, from now until the end of time, or for at least the lifespan of the science building, will handle unwanted rainwater from the site.

In the short term, “any water that runs into the building excavation will get pumped out to that pond,” says Streifel. “It’ll be filtered and treated before it either leaches back into the ground or, if there’s enough, it’ll be filtered and directed to the city stormwater system.”

Eventually the pond will be made over with appropriate soils and drainage infrastructure.

Then there’s site access. The project began with a single entrance on Campus Avenue, introducing a lot of new traffic — dump trucks! — to an already busy thoroughfare. That entrance will see less and less use.

A new gate has been opened on Bardwell, with another to follow on Nichols Street. A rectangular expanse between those gates, which will ultimately be the parking lot for the science building, will provide site access and space for gear and materials. That work is about half done.

Last but not least in the mise en place department, one of these days Consigli will set up its portable field office on a grassy patch on Bardwell — near the same location the firm used for the two years of the Chu and Kalperis project.

Fixing a hole: The preparations for construction are all very interesting (we just have to keep rereading what we wrote about the drainage pond) — but we are pleased to point out that, probably by next week, actual construction of the science building will begin.

Seen through Gate A, opening onto Bardwell Street, two excavators rearrange the soil at the science building construction site. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

In this phase, it’s “construction” in the sense of removing something rather than building something. Still, you have to start somewhere, and the science building construction will start with the excavation of a hole for its foundation.

This project differs from other recent construction at �ֲ��ý in that the hole will come very close to three sides of the construction site. As we explained previously, if there’s a lot of room around your cellar hole, you can give the sides a nice shallow slope to keep them from collapsing.

Since that amount of free space doesn’t exist here, three sides of the hole will be shored up with corrugated metal sheets driven into the ground — temporary retaining walls.

As Streifel explains, the first phase of excavation will remove soil to a 5-foot depth across the entire footprint of the building. “Once they have the five feet removed, they’ll get started with the shoring. And they’ll need the shoring to go in before they can go any deeper.”

Ultimately, most of the hole will be roughly 15 feet deep. Some spots will go as deep as 20 in order to accommodate building systems that we’ll tell you about in a future CCU.

Can we talk? Please send your thoughts about past, present, future, and speculative �ֲ��ý construction projects to Doug Hubley. Please put “Construction Update” or “I have your Les Paul” in the subject line.

Seen over the construction fence, here’s another view of 141 Nichols St. on March 28, with Carnegie Science, Chase, and Chu halls in the background. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Campus Construction Update: Nov. 30, 2018

Doug Hubley — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 17:01:27 +0000

Until this week, Campus Construction Update had paid relatively little thought to the relatively large list of slang terms, many of them derogatory, that have “Dutch” in them. That changed when we learned that the Peter J. Gomes Chapel has begun a new round of major restoration work and that Dutchmen will play an important role in it.

The top row of roundels in this soaring stained-glass installation behind the chapel pulpit depicts, from left, the biblical Matthew, Mark, Christ as the Lamb of God, Luke, and John. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Cast stone window tracery in the portico of the Peter J. Gomes Chapel, photographed last June. All such tracery in the chapel will be scanned and replaced with exact duplicates. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

The Phoenix Studio team prepares to remove a set of stained glass windows in the Gomes Chapel on Nov. 30, 2018. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

There's no other way to say it: A Phoenix Studio employee traces around a section of window tracery as his team prepares to remove stained glass windows in the Gomes Chapel on Nov. 30, 2018. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Crumbling cast stone trim around a window on the east side of the Gomes Chapel. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Naturally, we don’t actually mean human males of Dutch descent. Instead, in fields from carpentry to railroading to theatrical set-making — and in the case of the chapel, masonry — a “dutchman” is a repair made by cutting out a section of damaged material and replacing it with a matching section of new material. All of which is to say that �ֲ��ý has resumed work on a project, begun in 2011, to refurbish the 105-year-old chapel. During the 15 months of Phase One, the building’s entire slate roof was replaced, the copper cupolas on the corner towers repaired, and the masonry sheathing on the towers fully restored. Then and now, water damage is driving the project. Penetrating moisture was degrading mortar joints, eroding masonry, freezing into giant icicles inside the towers, and damaging spaces used for chapel activities, notably the choir loft. (We witnessed the extraction of a time capsule from a tower wall during Phase One: It was full of water, and the original contents were “a slimy pile of goop,” says Pat Webber, director of the Muskie Archives.)

Crumbling cast stone trim around a window on the east side of the Gomes Chapel. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Begun this month, the second phase of the chapel restoration encompasses all the exterior masonry that wasn’t treated previously, plus the portico that protects the chapel’s entrance, all the building’s stained glass, and the concrete tracery embellishing the windows. Exterior masonry repair commences just after Commencement 2019 and should be complete by November. In progress now, the Gomes stained glass and associated window tracery will take longer and be done in two batches. The windows in the chapel’s east and west walls (facing the Historic Quad and College Street, respectively) are being removed and should be reinstalled by this time next year. And the north and south windows will come out next fall and come home in September 2020. Clear polycarbonate panes, resembling Plexiglas, will fill the window openings in the interim.

The Phoenix Studio team prepares to remove a set of stained glass windows in the Gomes Chapel on Nov. 30, 2018. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

“The longer we wait to do the work, the worse the situation will get,” says Shelby Burgau, the Facility Services project manager directing the restoration. “The need is pretty obvious — it’s not preventative maintenance at this point, it’s work needed to keep the building intact and to prevent future damage.” Further delay, she says, could elevate repair costs to a whole new order of magnitude. In particular, the college is concerned that water penetration at the rear of the chancel could damage the hand-painted reredos. “If we don’t address these issues now,” Burgau says, “the scope of work could just blow up.” Consigli Construction, a familiar name to CCU readers, oversaw Phase One for �ֲ��ý and has returned to see the project through.

There’s no other way to say it: A Phoenix Studio employee traces around a section of window tracery as his team prepares to remove stained glass windows in the Gomes Chapel on Nov. 30, 2018. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

The chapel will be out of service, for the most part, until 2021. Facility Services, the Events office, and the Multifaith Chaplaincy are harmonizing chapel bookings with the construction schedule. Anyhoo, having sorted out “dutchman,” we next tackled “tracery.” This is cast concrete, also euphemistically known as cast stone, that makes a decorative pattern around a window or other opening. In the Gomes chapel, there’s tracery in the portico and around each stained-glass window. During stained-glass installation, the panels are fitted into the so-called rabbet — a crevice in the tracery — and are secured with mortar and caulk. To remove the glass, therefore, all that gunk needs to be gouged out, a time-consuming chore. The existing tracery will all be replaced. The original sections will be laser-scanned to produce virtual three-dimensional models, and these will serve as templates for the replacements.

The stained-glass depictions of Italian painter Fra Angelico, left, and the poet Dante Alighieri were restored in a Phoenix Studio pilot project a few years ago and will remain in place throughout the Gomes Chapel restoration. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

A firm highly esteemed in Maine stained-glass circles, Phoenix Studio of Naples is restoring the windows. The Gomes stained glass includes depictions of 20 key figures in Western culture in the east and west walls of the nave; and, in the chancel, glass portraying Christ as the Lamb of God, flanked by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Phoenix submitted the winning bid on the �ֲ��ý job about a decade ago. Circa 2012, Phoenix restored one five-window grouping on the west wall as a pilot project. That set, depicting the painter Fra Angelico and the poet Dante, will remain in place through the current work. The restoration will entail the complete dismantling and documentation of the windows, cleaning of the glass and replacement of damaged pieces, and reassembling the whole works with new lead. (But no dutchmen: In stained glass repair, a dutchman is a lead strip used to hide a crack in the glass. Such repairs actually weaken the window and are no longer an acceptable practice.)

As for the portico, which Burgau says is “severely deteriorating,” �ֲ��ý and Consigli have plans A and B. Plan A, she explains, “is to restore all the stonework, the tracery, the steps leading up, and the concrete slab it sits on. So, there’s already a decent amount of work associated with it.” Hopefully there will be no call for Plan B: razing the portico and rebuilding it completely. “We are accounting for that, budget- and schedule-wise, and we’re hoping for the best. But it’s going to be one of the first pieces that Consigli tackles next year in case a full teardown is needed.” BCO HQ: After our chapel visit, we headed back to the �ֲ��ý Communications Office with the stained-glass Dante lingering in our mind’s eye. But midway through our journey, we found ourselves in a dark chamber, for we had lost the straightforward path. Then we realized we had stumbled into a mechanical room in the basement of Lane Hall, and a quick retreat through a couple of doors returned us to the spotless corridors of BCO’s new home.

From left, editorial director Jay Burns, design director Grace Kendall, and strategic communications director Madge Hall meet in the �ֲ��ý Communications Office nerve center. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

The Communications team occupied its subterranean digs during the week before Thanksgiving. As previously reported, the offices were created from space most recently occupied by Residence Life, previously Post & Print, and, another generation ago, the Secretarial Pool. (Workers for project contractor Hebert Construction found some of their old bathing caps during the project.) Designed by Canal 5 Studio, an architecture firm in the Portland, Maine, the conversion was a wholesale imagining of a space that extends underneath Alumni Walk and is laterally connected to Pettengill Hall by a tunnel, rumored to be a former fallout shelter. “The outcome of the project is a really sophisticated area. I like it,” says Burgau, who oversaw the BCO construction prior to taking on the chapel. “We completed on schedule, on budget, and we got you guys moved in the day we were planning to.” The move reunites BCO’s 17 members in a single building for the first time since 2002. (Three members, though, occupy executive offices one flight up from the rest of the team.) It’s a warren of workspaces made dazzling with white walls, bold accent colors (�ֲ��ý garnet on the wall outside the CCU office), and brilliant LED lighting. The nerve center is a collaboration area lined with glass-walled offices, from which members of the team can view each other and wave in a friendly manner.

Surrounded by offices, the counter encourages collaboration among �ֲ��ý Communications Office staff. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

In terms of energy conservation, the BCO space is as good as it gets at �ֲ��ý, says energy manager John Rasmussen. Along with the Campus Avenue dorms completed in 2016 and a few other facilities, “BCO is right where we want to bring all the rest of our facilities.” The project encompassed the creation of a space-specific HVAC network whose variable refrigerant flow controllers save energy by closely matching the heating or cooling effort to the actual need. More noticeable to the �ֲ��ý communicators, though, is the lighting, which uses occupancy sensors — “occ sensors” to industry insiders like Campus Construction Update — to dim or extinguish lights when no one is around to benefit from them. The occ sensors also turn lights on when people enter a space, thus sparing precious muscle effort for banging keyboards. Various technologies serve to detect occupancy, and the BCO system combines two: infrared detectors that respond to body heat, and sensors that respond to disruptions in an ultrasonic field. Rasmussen reckons that occupancy-sensing lights, on average, use about two-thirds the electricity of traditional systems. Then you can factor in the savings realized through LED lights — which, Rasmussen estimates, draw about a third as much power as equivalent incandescents (remember those?) and about half as much as compact fluorescents. Can we talk? Please use the digital communications apparatus below or send your questions, comments and favorite quotes from Dante, either Alighieri or Silvio, to Doug Hubley. If emailing, please put “Construction Update” or “I want my bathing cap back” in the subject line.

A garnet accent wall in a reception area in the new �ֲ��ý Communications Office, Lane Hall. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Campus Construction Update: Aug. 16, 2018

Doug Hubley — Thu, 16 Aug 2018 14:03:55 +0000

Carnegie Science Hall’s freshly overhauled air-handling plant returned to service on Thursday, Aug. 9.

A temporary HVAC unit about as big as a shipping container filled in for Carnegie’s penthouse installation during the three-week project.

“We did some initial testing on Tuesday, and we needed Wednesday to get everything else together,” said Chris Streifel, project manager for �ֲ��ý Facility Services. “Then at 6 a.m. Thursday, we turned off the temp unit, and never had to turn it back on.”

Complete with new fans, behind the louvers at right, and cooling coils, at left, this is the supply air chamber in the Carnegie Science Hall HVAC penthouse. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Posing with our biggest fan, here's the future home of Campus Construction Update, pictured on Aug. 9. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

The folding table and stack of wallboard convey a sense of the counter-like collaboration table that will run between individual workspaces in the new �ֲ��ý Communications Office. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Once the door to Secretarial Services, where legions of seniors turned in their theses, this will become one of two entrances to the �ֲ��ý Communications Office. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Lowered from the roof and ready for removal, this construction debris was generated during the overhaul of Carnegie Science Hall's HVAC unit. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Refitted with new fans, coils for heating and cooling air, and other things that we have a harder time explaining, the system is running “just like it should be,” Streifel said this week. Technicians from Thayer Corp. and Dynamic Air Corp. will return next week for fine tuning, aiming to refine and balance the flows of air into and out of the building.

A Cote Corp. crane removed construction debris and tools from the roof of Carnegie Science on Aug. 2. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

“That could help control the air pressure in the building a little more tightly,” said Streifel. “Then we’ll do performance checks to confirm that we’ve hit our goals for what the system can do — how much air can we move through it, how much air can we chill, how much capacity do the new coils have?”

The two new coils, one for warming and one for cooling, use water to alter the temperature of air entering the building. The performance tests make use of instruments that measure airflow through the system, and temperatures of both air and water as they enter and leave the system. A mechanical engineer can use that data to calculate system performance. Streifel points out, though, that early testing suggests the system will meet or beat its goals.

Aside from that, the next couple of weeks will be spent training Facilities Services staff to run and maintain the system, and returning research operations that were relocated for the project to their rightful places. Somewhat later, the advent of heating season will necessitate another round of HVAC tests, as Carnegie is warmed by air from the unit. (The water for the heating and cooling coils is supplied independently of Carnegie’s tap water.)

A duct for incoming air dominates this access space to the Carnegie Science Hall HVAC unit. Photographed on Aug. 9, 2018, shortly before the unit was switched back on after a three-week overhaul. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Over the course of three 70-hour (or more) workweeks, the workers from Thayer and the subcontractors on the HVAC job “were amazing,” says Streifel. “They nailed it — really met every one of our expectations, and more.”

Now you’re in hot water: Carnegie must be blushing from all the attention it’s gotten this summer. Even as Thayer and DAC were going hammer and tongs on the HVAC work, plumbers for Damon Mechanical were wrapping up the replacement and expansion of Carnegie’s hot water service.

As we’ve reported, the goal was to both replace deteriorating pipes and add a whole new pipe complex that would convert the system into a recirculating loop, getting hot water to users faster.

In addition, the hot water storage tank was to be relocated from the first to the fifth floor, moving it near the water boiler. Together again for the first time! And finally, that gas-fired boiler was reconfigured for year-round use, replacing campus steam for making domestic hot water in Carnegie.

Four plumbers piping in Carnegie Hall. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

The tank-and-boiler work was completed in mid-July. Pipe installation and insulation got done during the week of July 30, making hot tap water available for the first time since early June. (Temporary hot water sources had been stationed in a few critical areas.)

Aside from cleanup, the final step here, too, was balancing the system — “adjusting valves so the water flows to the right locations,” explained Alan Kelley, �ֲ��ý’ manager for the project. That balancing act was performed this week.

The project was pleasantly free of surprises. The biggest challenge, if an entirely predictable one, was adjusting pipe courses to fit Carnegie’s crowded utility paths above ceilings, in closets, etc. “There’s just so much congestion with conduits, ductwork, exhaust hoods, and things like that,” Kelley explained.

Pipes and obstructions, Part II: We’ve learned more about an unexpected development in Kelley’s other large-scale summer project, the replacement of underground utilities along North Bardwell Street. We told you about the unmapped telecommunications conduit that forced a change in the routing for a section of new steam main.

As changes in plan so often do (making us dislike them all the more), this produced yet another wrinkle. In the original plan to replace the North Bardwell steam mains, all the old pipes would be abandoned in place. That’s because those pipes have asbestos insulation and removing them would require abatement.

Wouldn’t you just know it: The revised route for the new steam main between Wentworth Adams Hall and Olin Arts Center conflicts with those old pipes. So they’ll need to be yanked out and abated after all. That necessitates enclosing the street excavation with a tent, storing debris in sealed dumpsters, and other precautions. The experts of Acadia Contractors, of Turner, are at it now and should finish before school starts.

Closed since mid-June, this campus roadway providing access to Smith and Adams halls nevertheless opened for limited traffic last week, thanks to a base coat of asphalt applied early in the month. Asphalt pavements usually consist of a base coat and a top coat (which puts us in mind of the : “He’s the most tip-top / Top Coat”).

Grading North Bardwell Street on Aug. 1 prior to paving. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

But in this case, it doesn’t make sense to place the top coat until after the steam work, when the road is buttoned up for good. That will be the most effectual top coat.

Meanwhile, crews from Granite State Curbing Setters of Pembroke, N.H., were around plying their eponymous trade . The new curbs will make a nicer impression than the old concrete parking bumpers, although those do make good paperweights. And speaking of cosmetic touches, a crew from Davis Landscape Co. came up the road from Lisbon to begin work this week.

Phases and stages: Under construction since June, the new extension on the Coram Library porch will provide a much more spacious stage for �ֲ��ý officials to greet the campus community as school begins, just a few weeks hence.

New sod and paving have prettied up the construction site at Coram Terrace. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

With once-and-for-all completion of the Coram Terrace project now scheduled for later in September, as granite pavers are cut to order, the aim in the coming days is to make the porch functional and presentable for Opening Day on Aug. 27 and the Sept. 4 Convocation.

On the presentability front, Davis Landscape has bandaged construction scars with new sod; the construction fence has been removed; and new asphalt has restored Coram’s connections to campus walkways.

Functionality is just about there, too. On Aug. 6, the concrete artists of Sundown Construction Inc. poured a slab that will serve as the terrace floor until granite can be laid over it. We stopped by the following day, but the concrete was already too firm to scratch “CCU” into it and besides, it was covered with burlap that was wetted down periodically.

The Coram Terrace slab shortly after it was poured, on Aug. 6. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

After taking away the sharp stick we had planned to use for our initials, project manager Paul Farnsworth explained that the burlap helps regulate the moisture level in the concrete as it cures. As you’ll recall, maintaining the correct proportion of water relative to other ingredients is key to the chemical reaction that makes concrete strong. The prevailing hot weather made the burlap especially important.

The extension measures 70 by 15.5 feet, and is a little less than 30 inches high. Once a course of 6-inch granite blocks is laid around its perimeter, the newly embiggened porch will make an appealing perch. “It will be a nice place to sit and dangle your feet,” Farnsworth said.

Getting in on the ground floor: The ongoing creation of new quarters for the �ֲ��ý Communications Office on Lane Hall’s ground floor has entailed the remaking of several existing spaces that serve the entire building. And those facilities, which include a break room and a lactation room, are on track to reopen by the end of the month.

Shown with our biggest fan, here’s the future home of Campus Construction Update, pictured on Aug. 9. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Accompanied by Project Manager Shelby Burgau, we toured the worksite on Aug. 9. The common facilities were in various stages of near-completion: wallboard up and painted, flooring down, yet still awaiting ceiling tiles and such final touches as switchplates. A trash-staging room and an ADA-compliant bathroom are the other two facilities.

Getting those in-demand spaces back into service has been the top priority in the Lane project. Construction of the BCO area, meanwhile, is on schedule, with completion planned for November. In the month since our last visit, plenty of new wallboard had been hung, taped, and mudded, and there was visible progress on the utilities front that included the outdoor placement of a water chiller for BCO’s air-handling system. (We’re looking forward to hanging around the water chiller and gossiping.)

Providing ventilation for the BCO space, Burgau noted, has been one of the easy parts of dealing with subterranean Lane, which extends back under Alumni Walk and is rumored to include a former fallout shelter. As this section of basement lacks windows but does have a concrete shell insulated by earth, “we don’t have the various heating and cooling conditions that you would normally be working with.”

“That has been one of the biggest factors in this project, and it played into how we designed the HVAC system.”

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments about campus improvements and 1960s cartoons. Please e-mail news writer Doug Hubley, stating “Construction Update” or “Close friends get to call him T.C.” in the subject line.

Campus Construction Update: July 30, 2018

Doug Hubley — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 15:14:13 +0000

“I’m smiling right now,” said Chris Streifel as he conducted Campus Construction Update on a whirlwind tour of labs and classrooms in Carnegie Science Hall. “Things are good.”

Specifically, what was good was the feel of the air in those different spaces. After a few days of fine-tuning to relieve inconsistent and sometimes uncomfortable temperature and humidity, Carnegie’s ventilation system was more or less stabilized by our visit on July 25, itself an uncomfortably muggy day.

Fine-tuning because why? Because Carnegie’s rooftop HVAC plant, which heats, cools, and moves air throughout the building, was shut down for a major overhaul on July 21 and a guest unit was subbed in.

Thayer Corp. technicians ponder next steps after siting a temporary HVAC unit next to Carnegie Science Hall on July 16. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

The substitute is hard to miss: a big metal box on a flatbed trailer between Carnegie and Chase, connected to the science hall’s ventilation ductwork by huge fabric hoses that snake down from the roof like a waterfall by Christo.

In the effort to optimize Carnegie’s air since the weekend switcheroo, Facility Services staff, including project manager Streifel, have tweaked airflow controls inside the building, and technicians from the Auburn firm Thayer Corp., mechanical contractor for the overhaul project, have adjusted the temporary unit. By mid-week, conditions were pretty much right.

Climate inside Carnegie isn’t merely a matter of personal comfort: Much of the research undertaken there by �ֲ��ý faculty and students, some of it representing years of work, could be disrupted by extremes of temperature and humidity.

Cote Corp.’s 90-ton Grove crane towers over Carnegie Science Hall on July 23. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Even more conspicuous than the big white air ducts on Carnegie’s east facade were the visits from a crane on the Historic Quad side. The Grove-built crane, sent by Auburn’s Cote Corp. and staffed by an operator and three riggers, was here on July 13 and again July 20–24.

In the first visit, the Cote crew lifted HVAC components and tools to Carnegie’s roof and removed, among other things, the three dish antennae that have distinguished the roofline for years. Installed around 1990 to pull in satellite communications such as of foreign-language TV and radio, the antennae were made obsolete by the internet.

The extreme height of the dishes helped Cote determine what size crane to send over. As explained by Dan Cote, vice president of operations, the 90-ton-capacity crane had the reach to pluck off the dishes, but was light and compact enough to leave only fond memories behind — that is, no damage to Quad turf or foliage.

During the crane’s four-day visit, old HVAC components were taken down and their replacements — notably core items like air heating and cooling coils, new intake fans, a replacement motor and blades for the exhaust fan, etc. — were hoisted up. Cote will dispatch the crane to �ֲ��ý one more time to remove tools and debris near the end of the overhaul.

While �ֲ��ý is no stranger to cranes and rooftop work, Streifel points out that the physical extremes of this project — its height, the weight of components to be craned up, the mechanical complexity — make it a rarity for the college. “You have to think outside the box on ways to attack it,” he says.

With the Drifters crooning softly in the back of our mind, we went up on the roof on the 25th. Situated near the greenhouse, the air handler resembles a small building (albeit with a gaping hole cut one side to accommodate the overhaul). In fact, it’s often referred to as the penthouse (not to be confused with the Campus Construction Update penthouse).

The building’s air handler, aka penthouse.

Cooling coils will soon be installed in the penthouse.

Collapsible fabric air ducts await connection to a portable HVAC unit.

Carnegie Science Hall’s rooftop in July 2018: The penthouse appears at right in this image from the 16th. Collapsible air ducts ready to connect. Cooling coils await installation on the 23rd. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

What route does air take through the penthouse? Outside air, aka supply air, enters on the side facing Coram and Ladd libraries, and is regulated by dampers, like those things that flap in your furnace when the wind blows.

Then the air travels through a series of components for treatment: filters to remove dust, etc., coils that use hot or cold water to adjust the air temperature, and supply-air fans that push it down into the building’s labyrinth of ductwork. Ducts then circulate air back up to the penthouse for expulsion outside by the exhaust, or return-air, fan.

Inside the penthouse, airtight doors isolate the structure’s two working “rooms.” The first air chamber you enter is the supply room. This is where the filters and the heating and cooling coils live, as well as the supply-air fans. Six new fans have replaced the old singleton and are covered with metal louvers, forming a sort of wall.

Behind that wall is where treated supply air enters building ductwork. Right now that space is sealed off with sheet plastic while it serves the rental HVAC machine. If you press your hand on the plastic you can feel the air pressure stiffening it.

At left is the return-air fan; at right is the supply-air chamber in the Carnegie penthouse. Air-heating apparatus is located at right. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

The chamber at the rear of the penthouse is the return room. Here, along with pipes and valves installed at just the right height to gouge a careless visitor’s scalp, lurks the return air fan. Resembling a jet engine from the front, this machine is formidable and deeply embedded in the air handler’s structure. As its housing is still usable, replacing the motor and blades was sufficient for the overhaul.

When we visited, the new filters and heating coil were in place and the cooling coils sat outside on the roof waiting their turn. They are squat heavy units and we didn’t envy the workers who, later in the day, would be using lift tables and a lot of elbow grease to wrestle them into place.

Replacement of the major components is certainly timely — the originals were 28 years old, and a failure of any of them, as Streifel puts it, would have been “catastrophic,” as the building has no backup HVAC. But the immediate impetus for the entire Carnegie HVAC project involved the old cooling coils.

Like a waterfall by Christo: These fabric ducts circulate air from the portable air handler on the trailer through Carnegie Science Hall. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

These condense lots of moisture out of the air, and the pan installed to capture and drain that moisture was failing. This led to water leaking into offices and labs below — including a lab we visited where, in a slightly more evolved version of stockpot-under-the-roof-leak technology, a plastic tube ran from a ceiling tile to a sink.

“The pan was replaced as much as possible at one point,” Streifel explained. “But the leaks we couldn’t address were underneath the old cooling coil. To take the coil out is a major operation, and so once you start with that — you’re not going to go in and do that level of work and not replace other aging components.”

With a dozen or two workers on the site up to 12 hours a day, every day, throughout the project, Streifel anticipates that the rooftop work itself will be complete by mid-August. Then will follow a couple of weeks of system-wide testing and tweaking, as well as moving stuff back into the fifth floor that was deranged for the overhaul.

“We’ve gotten through a lot of the hard stuff,” he said. While he’s loathe to rule out surprises that could slow things down, “I feel good about where we’re at and where we’re heading.”

Things to Come, Places to Go: A July 26 directional-drilling project on Campus Avenue provided a portent of the new science building that’s coming to �ֲ��ý in 2021.

Consigli Construction, who is managing the science-building project for �ֲ��ý, was working with electricians and a drilling crew to tunnel under the pavement. This was the construction equivalent of laparoscopic surgery: Enterprise Trenchless Technologies of Lisbon Falls sent a remote-control drill under and across the street, and pulled a plastic conduit through the tunnel.

Hole where the rain gets in: Workers excavate for an electrical installation near Chase Hall. A connection will be made from here to the new science building. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Meanwhile, workers from Consigli and Enterprise Electric, also of Lisbon Falls, planted an electrical vault in the vicinity of Chase Hall. The vault and conduit will ultimately route power to the science building.

As we’ve reported, the science building will be located, more or less, where Campus Construction Update is sitting and writing these words. The CCU penthouse on Nichols Street is too small to accommodate the science building, so we’ll be moving to Lane Hall, along with the rest of the �ֲ��ý Communications Office staff.

A mid-July visit to Lane’s ground floor revealed an expanse of shiny metal wall studs that mapped the intriguing layout of BCO’s future home.

�ֲ��ý Communications staff visit their future digs in the basement of Lane Hall on July 16. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Since 2002, BCO has been divided between two wooden houses on Nichols, with the design and digital ops teams in one and the editorial and photographic teams in the other. So the Lane Hall offices will return the communications team to a unified space — and, in fact, has been designed not just to make cross-function collaborations more likely, but to encourage them.

The emphasis on fruitful collaboration was “one of the main drivers behind the design and something we hope will set the BCO project apart,” says Shelby Burgau, who’s managing the project for Facility Services.

“We recognize the varying work styles and the need to meet with folks outside of one’s office, so a number of different spaces will be provided.”

The business end of the 90-ton Cote Corp. crane at �ֲ��ý on July 23. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

In fact, the layout will make it all but impossible for BCO staff to avoid each other.

Priority has gone to completing three rooms — a lactation room, break area, and trash-staging room — that serve the whole building and had been taken out of service for the start of the project. Demolition and asbestos abatement began June 4, and the project reached a turning point roughly a month later as framing-in began.

As of July 26, framing was complete, utilities rough-ins were done for the three early-completion spaces, and sheetrocking of those spaces was in progress. They are expected to open to the public at the end of August. BCO will move in mid-to-late fall.

Can we talk? Send your questions and comments about past, current, and future construction at �ֲ��ý to Doug Hubley. Please put “Construction Update” or “Fine-tuning because why?” in the subject line.

Historic Quad junctions and a few Thayer Corp. workers seen from the roof of Carnegie Science Hall. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Set to debut Nov. 3, the remodel of bates.edu was driven by mobile

�ֲ��ý News — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 15:00:20 +0000

A comprehensive remodel of the �ֲ��ý website set to debut on Nov. 3 reflects the continuing sea change in how people are using the college website in 2014.

More and more, they’re going mobile, using smartphones or tablets.

The remodeled �ֲ��ý home page as it will appear to a desktop user. The remodel team’s use of “personas” inspired the creation of the four Audience Message Boxes geared to specific constituencies.

Two years ago, one in six visitors to bates.edu viewed the site on a mobile device. Now it’s nearly one in three.

While “mobile drove this remodel,” says Jeremy Cluchey, director of creative design for the �ֲ��ý Communications Office, “the fact is, the trend toward greater mobile traffic is a worldwide reality.”

All about making a website that’s easier to use.

Ensuring that every website feature and piece of content renders well on tiny screens as well as big desktop monitors is as much a design and architectural challenge as it is a technical one, Cluchey says.

In that spirit, the new bates.edu incorporates a major homepage redesign and a new site-wide navigation menu, among other changes that, in the end, are all about making a website that’s easier to use for all visitors.

When it comes to website redesign, you need to know your users. And while 2.5 billion people worldwide are online, the �ֲ��ý team zeroed in on just 12 users during the remodel process.

The 12 users, however, represent a conceptual twist: They’re “personas,” fictional people who represent the major public user groups of bates.edu.

To create the personas, a 12-person Usability Group, comprising staff from BCO and Information and Library Services, interviewed 50 �ֲ��ý stakeholders from 16 college offices that communicate with various external audiences.

Their expertise informed the group’s understanding of the college’s many audiences and fueled the creation of the personas, the use of which is standard for usability projects, Cluchey explains.

As an example of the site’s responsiveness, the new home page will look like this to a tablet user.

“We’ve given each �ֲ��ý persona a photo, a name, a hometown, and a set of specific attributes, including preferences, goals and top tasks for using the website,” Cluchey says. “We’ve created a list of do’s and don’ts for communicating with them. While they’re not real users, they could be.”

Diverse across gender, age, geography and race, and featuring various levels of engagement with �ֲ��ý, the personas include prospective students and parents, current parents, alumni and non-�ֲ��ý users such as a prospective staff member and a journalist.

For example, a persona representing an accepted student from Portland, Ore., wants to understand her financial aid package. The persona of a young alumna wants to network with other alumni and wants her opinion about �ֲ��ý issues heard, while the �ֲ��ý alumnus who’s also a �ֲ��ý parent wants coordinated parent-alumni communications.

With this gallery of personas in hand, the BCO remodel team — Cluchey, Web Designer Barry Costa, Senior Digital Analyst Nicholas O’Brien and Web Designer/Developer Jake Paris — examined existing metrics and other user information, conducted campus listening sessions and implemented a website survey tool to “home in on the key concerns and priorities of our users,” Cluchey says.

Armed with a feedbag full of feedback, the group identified several major goals and set out to create solutions to meet them. Goals such as:

Make the site fully usable to visitors regardless of one’s device, screen size or other technology, including Internet connection speed. The new site is fully responsive, featuring appropriate “break points” where the layout changes to meet the need of users’ various screen sizes.
The remodeled �ֲ��ý home page as it will appear to a mobile user.

Update the site’s visual presentation in light of current industry trends and standards. That meant eliminating the old rotation of five full-screen images. “There’s reason to believe most users tune out those animations,” Cluchey says. “Metrics tell us that users don’t click on them as much as you think they might.” The new homepage features six major stories at all times, and the featured story changes randomly each time a user lands on the site. The new site also features an improved presentation of the ever-popular �ֲ��ý slideshows.

Use data to streamline the site’s navigation and to create clear and intuitive pathways to content. Here, the use of personas inspired the creation of “Audience Message Boxes” on the homepage, four differently hued rectangles geared to specific audiences and messages.

Improve the site search so that it better serves users. Last summer, the Google-driven search function was improved so that results pages look more familiar and display much better on mobile devices.

Mobile behavior drove most of the other changes in the site’s navigation and architecture, says Cluchey. The old home page had a confusing tangle of menus that totaled 159 links. Of all those links, 20 received 80 percent of the click action.

To be sure, the number and placement of hyperlinks, especially in a site’s main navigation in prime real estate at the top of a page, is as much a political question as a web architecture one.

To answer those political questions in an apolitical way, the BCO remodel team asked four questions:

What is being clicked? The top clicks included, for example, the course catalog, so it and other popular links stayed.
What are visitors viewing that’s not in the menu? The popular “About Us” and �ֲ��ý College Store are among those added to the new menu.
What are the top tasks each persona needs to execute? Tasks like making a gift, knowing about campus events, using the alumni directory and finding admission information — top needs for many of the personas — continue to be doable in the new menu.
Finally, what links should appear because they reflect institutional importance and values? Answering this question meant adding a link to the president’s office, among others.

After all was said and answered, the team was able to reduce the number of links in the new “drawer” navigation at the top of the page to just 30.

An early conceptual sketch of the remodeled home page suggests that when it comes to communications technology, paper still has its place!

While perhaps not within a single click from any given page, the rest of the site’s content is still easily findable.

As the group tweaked the site, they tested new features in various ways, including with students in Commons and usability tests with alumni and other stakeholders.

That provided “great actionable feedback,” Cluchey says. “For example, it led to us to increase the size of the new menu bar and add clear headings to the new homepage elements.”

The remodeled website, still using WordPress for its content management, offers a freshened version of the award-winning major site redesign from 2011.

That redesign was a complete razing of the prior site and delivered vastly improved site-wide consistency, a better ability to track metrics and higher participation by campus offices, Cluchey says.

�ֲ��ý is best in higher-ed website competition

Jay Burns — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 16:00:02 +0000

Redesigned in 2011, the �ֲ��ý website has won top honors in a 2012 competition sponsored by eduStyle, a leading website for higher education Web design professionals.

The competition, featuring both judged and People’s Choice awards in each category, saw �ֲ��ý win both awards for Best Overall Website, and the popular award for Best Home Page. The winners were announced at the eduWEB Conference on July 31 in Boston.

Redesigned in 2011, the �ֲ��ý website took home top honors in the 2012 eduStyle Awards.

The is where higher education Web professionals “go to see what everyone else is doing,” says Ethan Wright-Magoon, digital creative director in the �ֲ��ý Communications Office. In one sense, it’s the “best of the best of the best.” In another sense, the site lets “you riff on what others are doing, because we didn’t want a site that looks like every other.”

�°��-�Ѳ��Ǵǲ�� that the new �ֲ��ý site is more than a facelift. “We basically razed the online campus. Then we redesigned and rebuilt every site.”

The �ֲ��ý website, 1997–2012

No images in slideshow.

The firm Tellart provited information architecture and strategy, then the �ֲ��ý Communications webteam developed its look and feel, working in tandem with the college’s Information and Library Services’ systems and development team.

The site’s appeal begins with an “immersive” home page experience, says designer Chris Bournakis of �ֲ��ý Communications. “This photo-driven experience allows the user to clearly understand what �ֲ��ý is about.”

“And that feel continues throughout the site,” Wright-Magoon says. “The fact that �ֲ��ý won best overall site and best home page speaks to that continuity. That was our goal, and we hit it.”

In terms of its content management system, the site is driven 100 percent by WordPress. Having a unified, site-wide CMS is “what leads to a consistent user experience,” Wright-Magoon says.

Webteam member Nicholas O’Brien says the site is especially effective in three areas.

Consistency

The 170-plus �ֲ��ý websites hosted by the WordPress content management system all share a single design layout. “As users navigate across multiple sites, essential elements like the global navigation and site-specific navigation are always in the same place, and always behaving identically,” O’Brien says.

While not glamorous, a simple element like contact information is one of the most important parts of a website, he adds. “Nearly all of our 173 WordPress sites display the appropriate contact information in a consistent, prominent location.”

Inclusivity

“To date, every office or department willing to create content for the Web has received some form of technical and/or editorial support in getting that content online,” O’Brien says. “This inclusivity gives users an accurate idea of what �ֲ��ý has to offer.”

Analytics

The WordPress-driven site yields bountiful analytics. “That, combined with data from phone calls, emails, and face-to-face questions, gives us an accurate picture of what our users would like to know and how well the website is helping them find that information,” O’Brien says.

Armed with actionable information, the webteam alters �ֲ��ý websites often and with good reason: in response to users’ browsing behavior. “When a slightly altered webpage results in 20 fewer phone calls per week to a �ֲ��ý department, we know that we’ve helped not only our users but our fellow employees as well.”

�ֲ���ý Communications Office – News