Can somebody refresh my memory on why Sawyer Hall had to come down while Morgens and Scioto were redeveloped?

Morgens was originally to be demolished and Scioto and Sawyer redeveloped very differently than the current way Scioto and Morgens were redeveloped. They were going to be clad in grey/black paneling and have a living wall element to them.

 

Basically they started gutting Sawyer and found extreme amounts of black mold. Removing would have blown the budget. So the plan then switched to demoing Sawyer with the hopes of more cheaply renovating Scioto and Morgens.

 

Morgens starts being gutted and also houses black mold. Delays happen, removal occurs, eventually it's finished and opens very different than the original intention back in the mid 2000s.

 

Scioto is assumed to have black mold (it did) and is redone to match Morgens.

 

New tower planned to take the spot of Sawyer as a result of the need for more student housing as the student body has grown 10k since it was torn down.

 

At least I think that's how everything went if my memory is serving me correctly.

Thanks!

 

Wow I had no idea it had even begun. I don't think I've ever seen pics of the construction yet. Does anyone have any?

 

I'll be down in Cincinnati next weekend - I'll grab a pic if I remember and no one else posts anything before then.

Morgens was originally to be demolished and Scioto and Sawyer redeveloped very differently than the current way Scioto and Morgens were redeveloped. They were going to be clad in grey/black paneling and have a living wall element to them.

 

Basically they started gutting Sawyer and found extreme amounts of black mold. Removing would have blown the budget. So the plan then switched to demoing Sawyer with the hopes of more cheaply renovating Scioto and Morgens.

 

Morgens starts being gutted and also houses black mold. Delays happen, removal occurs, eventually it's finished and opens very different than the original intention back in the mid 2000s.

 

Scioto is assumed to have black mold (it did) and is redone to match Morgens.

 

New tower planned to take the spot of Sawyer as a result of the need for more student housing as the student body has grown 10k since it was torn down.

 

At least I think that's how everything went if my memory is serving me correctly.

 

All of that section of campus is/was moldy.

This all makes me feel really old.  I can't believe how different campus is from when I went to UC.  It's a completely different campus than the one I went to.

Hey wait a minute wheres Sander Hall???

I got out of studio early today and was able to walk over and take some pics with my iPhone. If there's any specific angle someone wants I can try to go back tomorrow if I have time. I might try to get into Scioto and check out the view from there. I hope this is not too much/formatted poorly, I'm just not too familiar with posting photos.

Business Courier has a bit more detail on the mixed-use dorm/office/dining project: http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/03/03/get-a-look-at-uc-s-new-49-million-residence-tower.html

 

It's behind the paywall (so subscribe!)... they say it is expected to finish construction in December 2017.

Rendering from non-paywall article:

 

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/03/03/get-a-look-at-uc-s-new-49-million-residence-tower.html

UC to make $15 million upgrades to Corbett Center theaters

Mar 6, 2017, 6:15am EST

Tom Demeropolis

Senior Staff Reporter

Cincinnati Business Courier

 

 

The University of Cincinnati is starting on $15 million in improvements to the Corbett Center theaters.

 

The project, which is scheduled to start construction in March, will replace theater controls and add electric power, lighting, stage rigging, seating, curtain and audio/visual systems in Corbett Auditorium, Patricia Corbett Theater, Cohen Family Studio Theater, Werner Recital Hall and Watson Hall.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/03/06/uc-to-make-15-million-upgrades-to-corbett-center.html

^If only UC owned a theater in OTR... ideally one with exceptional acoustics, on the streetcar line, in an iconic historic building, just blocks from The Know, Ensemble Theater, Shakespeare Co, Memorial Hall, and Music Hall....... but whatever, I guess Princeton High School would be better. 

I'm pretty surprised that they're going to renovate all of their venues within CCM at once. You would think that they would stagger it so they could shuffle around performances, instead of shutting everything down and shifting them to area high schools.

 

Of course we would all love for the Emery Theater to be renovated, but that will probably have to wait for a future UC President who wants to implement a big landmark capital improvement program...and a Board of Trustees that goes along and is willing to approve it. You would think that Santa Ono would have supported such a thing because of his musical background, but it didn't happen. Neville Pinto, coming from an engineering background, seems like he will focus mostly on academics so I wouldn't expect him to push for the Emery reno.

^If only UC owned a theater in OTR... ideally one with exceptional acoustics, on the streetcar line, in an iconic historic building, just blocks from The Know, Ensemble Theater, Shakespeare Co, Memorial Hall, and Music Hall....... but whatever, I guess Princeton High School would be better. 

 

I still want to know what the hell the real story is behind the Emery Theater.  Everything about that was fishy.

^No kidding.  I think it goes back to the fight over the Aronoff.  That was extraordinarily contentious for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it added another theater to downtown and so takes business away from the Taft and Music Hall.  They didn't renovate Memorial Hall for 100 years for the same reason. 

 

I went to the Emery with my parents a few times when I was a kid.  I remember it being kind of dusty.  I think they had a guy playing the organ for silent movies and then they also showed the classic "talkies".  I do quite vividly remember seeing Showboat there on the big screen. 

MPMF opened it up one year if you remember (it was a bit worn down but a beautiful space and the acoustics were amazing), then the powers that be in Cincinnati probably said this is too cool and killed it because that's how they roll, lol.

Yeah I think there is danger in people liking it too much. 

 

If I hit the powerball I'd buy it and have it just run old movies on Saturday nights with $1 beer.  Give people something cheap to do. 

UC begins construction of $61M building

 

 

The University of Cincinnati has begun construction on a new Health Sciences Building, a $61 million structure that will be home to the College of Allied Health Sciences when it opens in winter 2019.

 

The four-story building will include classrooms, laboratories and offices. The atrium has been designed to fill the 117,000-square-foot building with natural light. The architect is Chicago-based Perkins+Will.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/03/07/uc-begins-construction-of-61m-building.html

The Piedmont Apts went down quick.  The seemingly leveled the entire complex in one day. 

The Piedmont Apts went down quick.  The seemingly leveled the entire complex in one day.

 

Gotta get that new Neuroscience building up and going. Nervous about what the final design will look like though, considering the renders were purely conceptual to gain donor money.

^If only UC owned a theater in OTR... ideally one with exceptional acoustics, on the streetcar line, in an iconic historic building, just blocks from The Know, Ensemble Theater, Shakespeare Co, Memorial Hall, and Music Hall....... but whatever, I guess Princeton High School would be better. 

 

I still want to know what the hell the real story is behind the Emery Theater.  Everything about that was fishy.

 

I had forgotten about this, but UC announced last summer that they wanted to sell the theatre. I wonder if anyone had show interest. I sent an email to PromoWest and the owners of MOTR/The Woodward telling them they should buy it, and got no response from either.

MOTR/Woodward Theater is in no position to purchase and rehab the Emery. They could help program it if someone else was the owner, but their loan on the Woodward wasn't even enough to fully renovate that building. They had to do a lot of piecemeal projects as they freed up capital after opening. I think they are largely finished with the original scope (though they undoubtedly have things they would like to accomplish), but there's no way they would be able to take on a project that large without some serious outside investors.

Yeah, I was thinking something like the MOTR/Woodward owners partner with some other company to rehab and reopen it. McCabe has the connections to book top tier bands, they seem to do a great job with food and beverage at MOTR and the Woodward, and they did a great job rehabbing the Woodward, so it's really about finding an investor that would let them scale that up to something as big as the Emery.

UC Health reveals design for $60M building

 

 

UC Health today revealed the design of a $60.5 million building that appears destined to be a landmark for both its architecture and the medical services offered.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/03/28/first-look-uc-healthreveals-design-for-60m.html

^Since it confused me at first, that rendering is from the perspective of Piedmont Ave, looking southwest. The skybridge appears that it would cross Piedmont, connecting to the Medical Arts Building.

I really love this, not too sure whats going on at the end with those diamond shaped things but it seems to be interesting. I also have this personal opinion that when you do glass facades ya really gotta go all the way with it, and this seems to do just that. I'm sure it's going to light up the whole area at night.

Some renderings of the new business school building (aimed to open in the fall of 2019):

 

http://business.uc.edu/new-building.html

Some renderings of the new business school building (aimed to open in the fall of 2019):

 

http://business.uc.edu/new-building.html

 

Still has this 1970's brutalist jail feel. Not feeling the design, granted these are renderings and final product might look better. Jury is out deliberating on design at this time.

Erm...are we looking at the same building? There's nothing brutalist about this building.

 

Not only that but it's very bright and open inside. Not quite sure where you're getting "jail" from...the only dark spaces are lecture halls which would be 100% useless if they were brightly lit with natural light.

 

I quite like it and think it'll add quite a bit to that portion of campus.

Yeah I'm also getting a brutalist feel from this side:

 

Brutalism is the expression of raw structural concrete. There's essentially none of that going on here. That's just concrete cladding that makes up like 50% of the facade at most.

If the ground floor were removed then I'd agree, it would 'feel' brutalist, from that one angle.

 

I'm digging the design. Will be interesting to see what it looks like once built. I can imagine that concrete cladding to be lifeless and soul sucking in person. Perhaps not, though.

Right. I'm not an architect, so I'm not claiming to get all of the terminology right here. I just feel like that side of the building is going to look pretty lifeless. Maybe like an old brutalist building that was "modernized" by punching out the ground floor's concrete and replacing it with glass. I'm just not feeling it.

I'm not sure what materials are being used for the exterior, but I don't think it's concrete. It looks more like metal to me. A few more angles are at this page:

http://business.uc.edu/new-building.html

 

Here's the southern facade:

Looks like the nursing school before it was renovated. 

Looks horrible.

Ugly. If they wanted to make a statement, they could have done what Case Western did with their business college.

^You're the first person in the history of ever to suggest a Frank Gehry as a good alternative to anything. A field of trailer park classrooms is better than a Gehry building.

 

The comments about this being ugly are somewhat odd to me, but to each their own.

What about it isn't ugly?

UC's campus looks like someone took random stuff off the shelf at a junk shop and then threw it out on their lawn wearing blindfolds.  The place is a mess.  This project upholds the tradition. 

I'm sorry, but no. You're patently wrong. The fact that UC gets so much praise from designers and planners proves this.

 

The flow from one space to another on campus is very well thought out. Nothing is "randomly tossed." There is a clear hierarchy of human and vehicular movement that creates a variety of scales of spaces that are each used for a different activity. Structurally it integrates and immerses students in ways that most campuses can't. Things like Nippert Stadium's integration into Main Street is very well thought out and makes it part of campus. How many campuses can say that? Buildings like Steger and CRC funnel pedestrian movement into a major pedestrian thoroughfare with secondary and tertiary spaces feeding into it. There's a distinct separation of the public spaces from dorm spaces which allows for a large student body to live on campus without it feeling crowded or on display. Car flow is secondary to human flow which creates an environment that's hospitable to one of the largest student populations of any school in the country.

 

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's, "a mess."

Somebody drank the arch school kool-aid.

Right, silly me, what do I know about my profession? Just drank the kool-aid. Didn't use that campus for 7 years straight or anything.

 

What part of how I described campus is inaccurate?

I like ruffling your feathers.

I ain't got no feathers! :)

UC's campus has a lot of variation, I'll give you that, but it is not "random". Having so many different types and styles of buildings is what makes it's campus one of the best in the nation. Would you rather have the homogeneous nature of Miami University (all brick everything) or on the opposite end NKU (all exposed concrete everything)?

 

Most campuses in the US, especially the midwest feel the same with nothing but red brick Georgian buildings placed around a quad. UC has this in the Schneider Quad, but they also offer much much more as Jmicha pointed out. Variation in a campus, like in a city, is a good thing.

UC's campus looks like someone took random stuff off the shelf at a junk shop and then threw it out on their lawn wearing blindfolds.  The place is a mess.  This project upholds the tradition. 

 

I like a lot of what was done during the renovation and I think much of the praise reflect this, but for many students who spend their lives on campus, they still encounter a lot of ugliness. The Main Street corridor is the one corridor that has a cohesive feel. The Rec Center and Steger building are great. Personally I am not a fan of what was done to TUC but I can see why architects like it. But the corridors I primarily used on campus were not nearly as nice, such as CCM to Edwards Center along Corry Street, and Edwards Center to College of Business, weaving between Dabney Hall and the Armory Fieldhouse.

Yea I think UC's campus is one of the more interesting and exciting out there, and it still hasn't reached its potential. The friction between the buildings is its strong point, and I hope this is built upon as other parts of campus beyond 'Main Street' transforms. The lawn needs to be enclosed more, or spatially humanists, to give more urban good vibes.

UC's campus looks like someone took random stuff off the shelf at a junk shop and then threw it out on their lawn wearing blindfolds.  The place is a mess.  This project upholds the tradition. 

 

I like a lot of what was done during the renovation and I think much of the praise reflect this, but for many students who spend their lives on campus, they still encounter a lot of ugliness. The Main Street corridor is the one corridor that has a cohesive feel. The Rec Center and Steger building are great. Personally I am not a fan of what was done to TUC but I can see why architects like it. But the corridors I primarily used on campus were not nearly as nice, such as CCM to Edwards Center along Corry Street, and Edwards Center to College of Business, weaving between Dabney Hall and the Armory Fieldhouse.

 

Yeah, campus still has a lot of awkward corridors, like the one between the ERC and Rhodes Hall, and the one between Rievschl and Zimmer, and pretty much any approach toward DAAP. Heck, the whole engineering quad could just use some more color- I don't mind the actual massing of most of the buildings, but the materials seem so "blah". I always thought it would be cool if the top couple of floors of Rievschl were removed so that the Zimmer garden could be extended, and then a set of terraces added to better connect DAAP with the rest of campus. Maybe even throw a glass roof over the "Berlin Wall" behind Crosley Tower and turn it into a new lobby or classrooms or something.

 

UC also has some very good corridors as well. I love the Mews, and especially the outdoor pathways that wrap all around CCM.

I actually really like the corridor between ERC and Rhodes. It feels very industrial and really appropriate for engineering. It's also very canyonesque which I like.