UBC has chosen team A to develop university blvd (is it just me or is signal-to-noise ratio of architectural descriptions just as low as dotcom B2B technobabble?). I personally think that this is a mistake and it will end up looking quite ugly. I can see it looking nice and flashy for a few months after they finish it but after that it is going to go to crap. UBC's Facilities Infrastructure Management Plan website has an interesting 'clock'. The clock tracks the current financial cost of 'Accumulated Deferred Maintenance', the cost of putting off maintenance of the buildings on campus. As I write this the clock is at $373,978,167 and is growing by $99,060.75 a day. What priority is maintenance on the new University Blvd. going to be when there are so many other buildings that need work more urgently?
Another interesting fact is that only approximately 1,500 people voted in the community poll. This is a ridiculously small number considering that students, staff, faculty and alumni could vote and that this decision will have a major impact on University life. According to 2002/2003 numbers there were 1,883 faculty, 4,695 staff, 32,376 undergrads, 7,045 graduate students and over 210,000 living alumni. That is a total of approximately 46,000 possibly voters that are on the campus on a regular basis and over 250,000 possible voters. And only 1500 actually voted.
The one upside to this is that I think the new buildings will provide some increddible buildering opportunities.
Posted by bforsyth at May 2, 2005 01:18 PM