Return to the New Building

May 13, 2005

In some ways a month makes a lot of difference, in other ways not. I was able to go on a second tour of our new building, about a month after the first, and got to see the progress made in that short time. Finishing work such as painting has begun in the lower areas, and most of our space has at least been wallboarded and plastered. If this is your first stop here, you likely want to see the first tour to get an overview of the place to compare it to. I've linked a few of the pictures from there so that notable changes can be pointed out.

north side panorama

A panorama of the north side

The east side was mostly finished before - this view shows the connection to the oldest engineering building

Single image of the North side

Northeast corner/main entrance

The main lobby is shaping up but still doesn't have wallboard

Looking out from the main lobby

The east entry into the building now has skylights (taken next to what is now the co-op office)

The east entry runs (to the right in the prior picture) into the main atrium. the main floor. The basement level of the new building is mainly classrooms and laboratories.

The Engineering design lab on the main floor now has a little more wallboard, but not much

They are just starting to blow through into the tunnels to University Centre in the basement

The elevators in the basement are shaping up, and there's some paint in places

The inside of the elevators have shown up too.

one of the basement classrooms. They are just about to put the suspended ceiling in.

Another view (my camera unfortunately leaves some artifacts in dim areas where the flash isn't enough to fill in the entire area)

Another classroom, showing signs of paint...

We got to see the third floor this time,which was inaccessible during the previous tour. This floor has classrooms that we'll be using, as well as engineering space. These pictures do demonstrate (as a response to student comments about the previous tour) that yes, computer scientists do occasionally get classrooms that are not in a windowless basement.

One of the third floor classrooms - they are somewhat smaller, and have a flat floor rather than tiered seating

Another third floor classroom, just to prove that the first was not an anomaly...

Looking out into the atrium from the third floor - you can see the work platform lowered to the floor

Main corridor on the third floor

Lots of work has been done on the atrium, but it's so big you really have to focus on specific areas to see progress.

They've taken out a chunk of Engineering 1 at the top facing the atrium

...and are starting to close off the outer wall on that side

They are cleaning and restoring the stone that used to be the outside parts of Engineering 3

Scaffolding for stone cleaning

More stone cleaning, shot from the 3rd floor looking down

A panorama from the main level

Raisable work platform - here they are using it to paint the roof, and the struts that cross it, white

The main staircase at the far end of the atrium was a little more accessible than last time, so I have more pictures on and around it.

The bridges joining the staircase, from the main level

The main staircase. The undersides of these will be covered in stainless steel.

Atrium panoram from the third floor staircase

The stairs from the side at the third floor point. Very Echereque if they were to leave the undersides showing...

Looking up the staircase from the third floor

Looking down from the fifth floor

Horizontal panorama of the atrium from the fifth floor

Vertical panorama of the atrium from the fifth floor

On the fourth floor, the stairwell leads to the new Department of Computer Science General Office. These pictures are in and around that area

Below the office entrance (upper left)

Looking out the general office door onto the stairwell bridge (these arc lights screwed up the angle from the previous image)

A panorama of the general office. Note the head sticking his head into his office. The half-walls will ultimately join to counter space.

The head's image office, looking out over the mini atrium by the east entrance

The administrative assistant's office is a mirror image of the head's, and right next door

The student reception area, looking over the barrier to support staff offices

The head explaining that this barrier will not always look like a gyproc monolith

The corridor past the support staff offices ends in the copy room.

As noted on the past tour, the fourth floor contains most of the offices of the Department of Computer Science, as well as rooms for various departmental functions.

The office that will ultimately be mine has wallboard, and a mysterious plywood box.

From a month ago, looking at my office from across the unwallboarded hallway and equipment room, just for perspective.

Two of the offices on the East side fourth floor have a lucky third row of windows.

David Scuse's office, typical of most on the North side

The corner office (Peter King's) over the northeast entrance has a full wall of windows

View from my office window

Fourth floor North office view

The view further along the 4th floor north side

Pulling back from the previous view - you can see many north offices are still being framed

The grad lounge on the 5th floor, which looks into the atrium rather than outside

We also [were supposed to have had] much of the space on the sixth floor of the new building, and this is the first floor where you could actually see how the space mates to the older buildings in the complex.

This was supposed to be our grad office area on the sixth floor.

It was traded to engineering for use as a faculty lounge.

Looking down over the ledge from the suposed-to-be-grad area into the atrium

Looking out over the ledge from the suposed-to-be-grad area into the atrium

The rear of the former grad area abuts the staircase. Crossing over that, we connect to engineering 1 - you can see the upper gables of the old roof embedded in the new building

You can now access the top floor on the engineering 1 side. This is a panorama looking toward the atrium and showing the new building

The connection the "Big V" (to the left) that is a major feature of the atrium on the south side.

Most of the fifth floor of the new building is occupied by research labs. This is an image from the end of the corridor outside my lab, looking out into the atrium.

The fifth floor offices facing east have a large area in between the windows and the edge of the building. The claim was that this would be filled with earth and planted

Finally, the northeast stairwell is glassed most of the way around, and the top affords an amazing view of the north side of the campus. Somebody seems to have broken a window up there too...