When Science Meets Architecture, Strange Things Happen

Back in 1970, our College of Medicine at the University of Iowa was growing rapidly and space was desperately needed. But the dean (and the president) didn’t want just any ordinary science building, so they engaged a nationally known architectural firm in Chicago to design it. The Chicago architects were enthusiastic. Why wouldn’t they be? They’d designed some impressive structures, but they had never designed a science building before. Fortunately, we, the faculty, did not know this. Boy, were we ever excited about the project. Almost immediately, we started drawing up lists and ideas of what we would need in our new quarters. And just at this time, by happy coincidence, a symposium was held at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society on the subject of new chemistry buildings. A number of faculty members from our biochemistry department attended, and we listened to speakers from four campuses describe the problems involved in the design and construction of new major science buildings. The message stressed by all speakers was: “Tell the architects what you want and make sure they listen to you.” Professionalism We took that advice to heart. After all, we were the ones who were going to spend most of our waking hours in that building. So at our first session with the architects, we paraded our lists before them. “Yes,” Walter, the chief archited, nodded in answer. ‘You need laboratory benches, desks, water, gas, and electricity.” He motioned casually toward a pile of blueprints, adding, “those items are already in our preliminary plans.” We left that session pleased. Not only were the architects friendly and personable, but we were impressed with their professionalism. Nevertheless, from time to time, we differed with the architects, and made additional suggestions (which we conveyed through the university’s liason architect). At one meeting with the Chicago architects, for example, we made a very important suggestion. “Walter,” one professor explained, “the plans call for a water faucet and a gas tap in one corner of each laboratory. That’s got to be changed. We need to have water, gas, electricity, and vacuum available every three feet, on every laboratory bench.” “No, you can’t do that,” replied Walter. “That would make the building much more expensive.” “Yea, Walter, but these are chemistry laboratories. There may be five or six people working in each lab, and each of them would need these facilities.” “But they wouldn’t need them at the same time, would they?” the architect asked. “Yes, they would, Walter— that’s the whole point. That’s why we need those facilities on each lab bench, every three feet. They’re essential. Without them, there’d be facilities for only one person; the other five might as well go out and play golf.” We won that exchange, but we were too naive to see what was ahead. Over the course of the year, we lost far more than we won. We didn’t know then that the architects wanted to win a major competition with the building and didn’t want their design tampered with. One of the arguments we lost had to do with windows. The design called for windows that could not be opened. At a meeting, I said, “I would much prefer movable windows.” “Why?” Walter asked. “So I can open them and bring in some fresh air.” “Oh, but George,” he countered, “There’s no need for that at all. The building will be completely air- conditioned, with plenty of air moving.” “What if the electricity fails?” “Oh, that will never happen,” Walter answered. “Well,” I said, “I’ll keep a brick next to my window, just in case. So much for the best-laid plans of architects. The building was finished in the summer of 1972, and with much hoopla, we moved in, only to find (you guessed it) that there was no air conditioning. There was electricity and the air was moving, but it was loaded with moisture, and it was hotter than hell. The sweat ran down our arms and backs as we worked at the laboratory benches. I was tempted to use the brick, but worried that the window might not be replaced until January. We inquired, we complained— and we got nowhere. Finally the chief of the refrigeration plant explained that the wrong valves had been installed in the technologically advanced system. He also told us about another advance—the airconditioning system had the air returning through the chemical hoods. Vanishing Towel We soon learned that this meant that the hoods would be on all the time, with interesting consequences. When Professor Harry Hogenkamp lifted a two-liter beaker of water off a towel in the hood, for example, the towel vanished, it was sucked right up the hood. After a while, the motors sucking air through the hoods in a number of laboratories became plugged and had to be repaired. The excessive movement of air through the hoods also resulted in many complaints to the university’s liason architect about bothersome noise. With the passage of time, the answers to these complaints progressed from, “We’ll see what we can do,” to, “We’re trying to solve this problem,” to, “Perhaps you’re just overly sensitive.” That provoked several faculty members to carry out some actual measurements, and they found that the noise levels in several laboratories reached 87 decibels. This information got things moving in earnest after it was pointed out that noise levels higher than the industrial standard of 80 decibels could result in injury. But that’s not all. Take the case of the safety showers and floor drains. Despite our repeated written requests, there were no provisions for these in the blueprints. So at our next-to-the-last meeting with the architects while the building was being constructed, I had announced that I wouldn’t move into my lab without a safety shower. “Why?” asked the architect, by this time a bit exasperated. “Why?! Because I was once trapped in a fire in a lab that had no safety shower. Three people were injured and hospitalized and I was one of them.” It was diflicult for him to ignore a statement like that, and we got our safety showers. But at the last meeting with the architects, we noticed that there were still no floor drains. “Why not?”. I asked. “The drains aren’t used very of- ten,” the chief architect replied. “They get plugged up and then they don’t work anyway, so you don’t need them.” We couldn’t believe our ears. Finally, one of the faculty members asked. “Then what are we going to do with all that water after someone has used the safety shower?” “We’ll supply you with commercial vacuum sweepers,” the chief architect said, “and you’ll be able to suck up any water that’s on the floor.” You can guess what happened. One day, before the biochemistry department had moved into the fourth floor (the other floors were already occupied), some curious soul wandered in to see what the floor looked like. He decided to test one of the showers. It worked. But no one was there to tell him how to turn it off. This was the latest design in showers; to turn it off, you had to rotate the ball joint by pulling the handle down, then up, then down, then up again. The poor soul left with the shower still running. He hoped. I " suppose, that a time switch would shut it off, or that God would intervene, or that the Iowa River would run dry. None of these things happened, of course. The water rose, flowed through the laboratory, the corridor, the hall, and down the grand staircase. In the morning, the classrooms, laboratories, and offices of the department of microbiology, on the third floor, were under four inches of water. This occurred in spite of assurances from the architects that water spilled on one floor could never reach the floor below. The chairman of the microbiology department was not pleased. What went wrong? Well, the motors that drove all the fans in the building were tested and installed on the roof while the building was being constructed. And there they sat unused for a year while the interior of the building was being finished. During this time, the oil and grease drained from the bearings and when the motors were started up again, about a dozen of them burned out immediately and had to be replaced. There were also continuing problems with the chemical hoods. Two of them were designed to be washed down with a spray of water on the inside as a safety measure to remove any excess acid. After their installation, the water valve was turned on to see how well the system worked. We could hear the water gushing out—somewhere, we didn’t know where—but it wasn’t visible in the hood. Of course we turned the water off, but almost immediately, a professor came rushing up from the floor below, wanting to know, in a loud voice, where all that water was coming from. The hoods had to be dismantIed, the water pipes reconnected (correctly, this time), and the hoods then reassembled. Finally, the air conditioning was fixed, and after a few days of being unbearably cold, conditions in the building became tolerable. Then, someone had a bright idea “Let’s not wait until December to see if the heating system works; let’s try it out now,” he said. So the heat was turned on, and thank God it worked—except that in our corner of the building it would not shutoff. The temperature kept rising. We were being roasted. I ran to my office to turn the thermostat down. I looked on every wall. There was no thermostat. “Where is that God-damned thermostat?” I yelled. A look at the blueprints located it in Bob Dryer’s office, next door to mine. “Where’s Bob Dryer!” “He’s in Washington,” said our secretary. We finally got a key to his office, and turned that thermostat down—but nothing happened. So we ripped the cover off to find that it wasn’t connected. The people in the physical plant division, who do the repairs on our buildings, had to come over, shut off the heat, and hook up the thermostats on all six floors of that section of the building. The architectural innovations even extended to the classrooms in our department. Each classroom has seven walls, each wall is a different length, and the angles between each pair of walls are different. Some angles even jut into the room. As a result, only students sitting in the center could comfortably see what was written on the blackboard. We had to rearrange the chairs, add a large blackboard to another wall, reposition the projection screen, and even relocate the light switches. So what happened to the architects responsible for all these blunders? One day, when the building was about a year old, Bob Dryer came into my laboratory. He had a puzzled, hard smile, and a peculiar glint in his eyes. “George,” he said, “I’ve got some news you’ll be interested in about our university liaison architect. He’s leaving.” “Hooray!” I cried. “It’s about time they fired that incompetent son of a bitch!” “He’s not being fired,” Bob said softly. “He’s being promoted. He’s leaving to take a job as chief architect at ———— University. Our Chicago architects recommended him strongly.” “My God—you can’t mean that! Who told you?” “He did. About a half-hour ago. And he gave me this reprint,” he said, handing me the article he was holding. “What is this?” I asked. “George,” he said, speaking very deliberately, “this is a reprint of an article published in the National Architectural Journal.” “All right so what?” I exclaimed. “So what?!” He almost shouted as he held up and waved the article at me. “So what! This article draws national and international attention to a new theory of architecture that the editors state has been carried out with a fresh new approach. It is an award for outstanding architectural design!” “Our building?” I asked. “That’s right.” In all fairness, he adds, once its initial problems were corrected, the science building has, in fact, performed rather well. George Kalnitsky is an emeritus professor of biochemistry at the University of Iowa College of Medicine

When Science Meets Architecture, Strange Things Happen

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