Boos for the Big House

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“Like a number of the other recent projects, the university is making an effort to do long-term planning to create a dense campus footprint that is more efficient and green,” Mike Quinn says. “The new structure has significant merit as a more human-scaled hospital with a more visually inviting character, even though it will be quite massive. Hopefully it will lead to the desire to explore similar energy-efficient, green-facade improvements on the balance of the hospital complex in future years.”

The prospect of a twelve-story hospital right next to the Arb doesn’t dismay Quinn in the least. “The Arboretum creates a natural buffer and an interesting edge to the site,” he says.

“I doubt if Mott will diminish my pleasure in visiting the Arb,” concurs Luckenbach, “even if I can occasionally get a glimpse of it.”

Asked what the future holds for campus, Carl Luckenbach is characteristically pessimistic—primarily because of what he calls the university’s “schizophrenic building policy. The university seems to have no consistent attitude or philosophy toward building. So you get a building like the Biomedical Science Research Building, which received national awards, and then you get things like the football stadium expansion, which is hideous.”