After months of hauling out the old this Fall, in comes the new, and the place is
changing faster than ever. Every day between 50 and 70 people are working
on the site. The above image was created for the Art and Architecture
Committee by Andrew Gibson, from Mortenson Construction. After showing
so many images of demolition, now that it is Spring this image of the future is
more hopeful. Note especially the new West entrance, the Heartland Terrace
above, and the raised roof/clerestory in the center of the building.
Last Friday, a huge crane arrived at the Schindler Renovation site to install new
new heating, ventilation, and cooling (HVAC) units through the roof to the sixth
floor. Two weeks ago huge steel beams arrived, and much of it is already in
place for mounting additional HVAC units on the south end of the former large
lecture hall, and also supporting the areas cut out for the new West entrance.
The floors of the former lecture halls have been leveled with laser-cut highdensity foam covered with concrete. Soon, they will be building the steel
structure to support the new raised roof clerestory in the new Great Room.
The new classrooms on the 3rd and 4th floors have been sheet rocked and are
now being painted, already adding rich color the new design. The design for
new classrooms with “right-sized” spaces, wider hallways, and built-in soft
seating, and “break-out” areas is especially successful. Many classrooms even
have a window or two!
The 5th and 6th floor demolition and reconstruction is ahead of schedule.
Demolition is done on first floor South, and workers are now putting up the
metal wall studs there. Installation of the new glass has also begun - window
design, glazing, tinting, and insulation technology, has improved vastly since
the ‘70’s! A new central main entrance, and four window openings have been
cut into the long, curved, brick interior wall of the IRTS Lab, opening it up and
visually connecting it to the adjoining Great Room. It really makes a difference.
Our Interior Designers from Stantec call their design theme for Schindler
“Kaleidoscope”. The North and South interior brick walls of the Great Room
(formerly known as the “Commons”) will be paneled in “back-painted glass”.
Samples of the glass panels arrived for our inspection last week. Wow. The
colors are amazing and beautiful. Those colors will appear on accent walls
throughout the building. One of the top goals of our renovation was to
improve way-finding. Interior Designers have also contributed to that effort.
The North (tower) section will have “cool” accent colors, and the South section
will have “warm” accent colors - with gold and purple being part of the mix!
Each floor of the tower will feature two different “cool” colors to indicate East
and West
This month representatives from your Departments are meeting with Carol
Christopher, UNI’s Interior Designer, and Heather and Lori from Storey
Kenworthy, our local office furniture dealers. The goal is to have our office and
classroom furniture order together before people leave for the Summer so it
will be ready to be installed late Fall. This is one of those times when I realize,
once again, that the College of Education is large and complex – with a facility
to match. Luckily, the professionals working with us on all of this have been so
helpful and great to work with.
Owner-Architect-Contractor meetings happen every Tuesday afternoon. One
week the whole group walks through the building looking at specific areas,
checking progress and quality. The next, we spend at a table, looking at
logistics, issues, budget, progress and schedules. While sometimes a
necessary discussion of bathroom tile and hand dryers can get a bit tedious,
there are also really interesting collaborative problem solving sessions - like
last Tuesday when all three parties contributed to a Lecture Hall ceiling
solution which will be more beautiful, functional, and less expensive than
previous plans!
Many of you who have been on the Schindler tours have met some of these
guys, my current heroes of the project: left to right, Brian Kacmaryinski,
Winston Williams, and Andrew Gibson, from Mortenson; Dan Rittgers, our UNI
construction manager, and Ken Hagen, our lead architect from DLR.
Rick Knivsland
Schindler Renovation Chair