Campustown

               Today we took a tour of one of the most popular streets on campus. In fact, when I moved in this past fall, Green Street was the only street I was familiar with. My math team coach in high school always took us to Green Street to experience “college life in Urbana-Champaign.” But to think that Green Street hasn't always been this bustling corridor of restaurants, bars, and shops kind of blows my mind.

                The Campustown we know today started being shaped up when a few students and a faculty member took it upon themselves to fix the flooding problem. Now this wasn't just a minor flooding problem, the floods were so high and common, that students would take kayaks down to Green Street to row around. What this group of researchers found in this area was a potential place to be a destination for students to relax and have a good time just a block away from campus, not just a place for vehicular transportation to rule.

                What happened in the many years to follow this project by the students and single faculty member shaped Green Street into what we see today. From the awnings shrinking to the sidewalks expanding to the roads narrowing, everything has changed to open up the area for student and campus life. The first block between Wright and Sixth Street has a form of symmetry in that all of the buildings rise only two stories. As you go farther West however, you see the buildings have no real order. Apartment buildings have been erected to take advantage of students’ desire to live near such a bustling neighborhood. These companies can charge more in exchange for less space, but the location and proximity to the area keeps bringing the students back to sign their leases.

                One of the most interesting things I have seen in this class exists in Campustown. Certain bars and shops are actually running out of a house. These stores have planted an open store front in place of the front porch of a home and are otherwise using the home as their place of business. You don’t notice it when you are just walking by, unless you have been notified of it before. In that case, you will never be able to unsee it.

The Organized Chaos of Downtown Champaign

                Today we took a very intriguing tour of Downtown Champaign. Let me mention a little background on Champaign-Urbana before I get started. Urbana was settled first by people from Urbana, Ohio. When the settlers started expanding, they expanded to the west. The new part of town was originally called West Urbana before it got changed to Champaign, and thankfully it got changed.

                While most of Champaign follows a typical city grid with streets running north and south and east and west, there is a certain part of Champaign that has streets offset by about 20 degrees. The reason for this is the train tracks that connect us to Chicago. When the roads were built, there was a small section that was offset from Springfield to Washington North to South and from Neil to First East to West. While in this offset grid, you can see both the typical style of small towns with parallel and perpendicular streets that figuratively connect them with Washington D.C. and the offset roads built in conjunction with the Illinois Terminal.

                From here, we walked along the most popular street name in the United States, Park Avenue, to West Side Park. This is the main park in Champaign and it is very easy to understand why. Located just a few blocks from Central High School, this park can serve as an easy place for P.E. classes to have an open field to use for exercise. This park is also surrounded by at least 3 churches: Presbyterian, Methodist, and Episcopalian. And not too far south, just a few blocks, is the Champaign Public Library. This park is so significant because in just one place, residents can practice physical, spiritual, and mental health, a major concept that coincides with the idea of Americana.

                This tour reminded me a lot of my hometown. It is built around a railroad track that helps transport the crop harvested every year. We have the typical road grid with the larger mile by mile grid present also. Along the railroad street runs Main Street with all the local shops that hope to gain the trust and service of the community. As we expand, we find the larger more elegant homes just off of Main Street, far enough away to not be affected by the farms and their grain bins, but close enough to town the be just a short walk away from anything they need.

                This tour definitely encouraged to not just accept that buildings are built the way they are, but to wonder why. I will definitely be able to “read” a city anytime I see one and compare it to the organized chaos of Downtown Champaign.

XPO 15

                Today, we went to the Architecture Career Expo at the iHotel, which is a very nice hotel by the way, and turned the tables on the firms there. We interviewed the firms instead of them interviewing us. I talked to a firm by the name of Raths, Raths, and Johnson. What’s interesting about them is that they don’t actually build the buildings. They inspect and repair building that need brought up to modern standards, or just simply need a few repairs. They are based out of Chicago and have one office downtown. However, they do jobs all across the country including one in Nevada. They have been around since 1966 and have worked on some very large projects such as repairing the John Hancock Center in Chicago.

                I asked them exactly what they were looking for in a student that walked up to their booth, and they said that they wanted the student to have some type of work experience already. If they didn’t already have an internship, then they needed to at least have a previous job with lots of experience in the workplace. They also wanted students to be very knowledgeable about the field and the many aspects of architecture, but they also wanted to see a lot of creativity. They mentioned that confidence and communication skills also played some role in the decision making process for selecting interns. After the XPO, RRJ would get ahold of a few they were interested in and have short informal interviews on campus, then they would narrow it down and ask for the potential intern or employee visit their office in Chicago for an official interview before they made their decision.

True Colors of BIF

                Today we toured BIF. Now I have walked past BIF many times and the only thing I really notice is that is looks much more modern than the rest of the buildings on campus. As we toured the building, Professor Hinders explained how BIF uses many different aspects of its design to make it more sustainable, or at least make it seem more sustainable.

                We started off our tour with a lecture on sustainability and specifically 3 aspects of sustainability: materials, water, and energy. We talked about the embedded costs of materials. In order to reduce the cost of construction, most architects use materials that are very abundant in the relative area of the structure. The less distance materials have to travel allows for cheaper transportation prices and less chance of damage of any type. However, some materials need to be shipped a long distance because they may be very sustainable and last a very long time.

                Another aspect of sustainability is water. BIF was built on an old parking lot, so to begin with, it helps reduce runoff just by being there. The roof also has plants on the top to help soak up the water and put it to use rather than let it run off continuously. BIF also uses showerheads, faucets, and toilets that run on a low pressure water system so as to use less water. However, professor talked to us about the necessity of the bike showers. In order to get a LEED certification point, the building needed to have a bike changing room and shower for bikers to get ready after a long bike. However, just across the parking lot is Huff Hall which has plenty of locker rooms for changing and showering. Were the showers really necessary? Well they were when it came to getting LEED certification, but the building would still function the same and have cost less to construct without them.

                The last aspect of sustainability we discussed was energy. BIF has many great aspects that help reduce the amount of energy needed to keep it running. For example, the South wall of the Atrium is made up completely of glass which allows natural light in, reducing the amount of energy needed to light up the Atrium. However, the lights are still on in the Atrium 24/7 so it doesn’t actually help if they don’t let it. But since this wall is fully glass, the heat from the sun in the summer time can be pretty unbearable. That’s why the roof above the Atrium juts out about 20 feet past the wall to block the sun from shining directly into the Atrium. This helps reduce the energy need to cool the building in the summer. The sunlight also helps heat the building in the winter reducing the total energy need to ventilate the building year round. One interesting part of BIF is the solar panels that are placed on the roof of the auditorium. While they are good in theory, they don’t even provide enough energy for the electricity needed in the auditorium. Furthermore, the way they are connected to the roof poses as a  threat to water leakage which could potentially create a greater cost that the money they are saving at this point.

                All in all, BIF is a fascinating building. While we see that many aspects of it to help make it a very “green” building that is fairly sustainable, some parts actually hurt, or could potentially hurt, more than they are helping. The LEED certification brings a good vibe the university, but it doesn’t always show the true sustainability of a building.