Mein Gott, the environmental public interest crowd, the hip anti-corporate types, the artistic snobs seeking to improve the value of their art history degrees - a whole new breed of law student will find this building amazing, and certainly worth turning down Harvard. Every day I'm amazed at the nuances found in the scam, where effort can be concentrated for optimal gains, and with some simple acts of flair in the design, Baltimore has managed to stand out from everyone else who's built a new facility in the last decade.
Here are some erection-inducing quotes from the article:
They ... screened the expressway in the rear with a patterned concrete wall that incorporates a “water feature.”...
The Law Center’s form and facade ... is ... a Chinese burr puzzle made up of inter-connecting parts....
Three sides (except the north) actually consist of a double facade: a “rain screen” of half-inch glass panels that extends about ten inches beyond the primary wall....
The interior is organized around the central lobby and atrium. There are four elevators (two of them Hyatt-style glass boxes allowing views to the outside and inside of the building) and a complex array of stairway systems, including spirals and ramps. They rise through twelve floors of the reinforced concrete structure....
Maple was used for the stairways and trim, and bamboo for the flooring and trim in the moot court.
In the classrooms and elsewhere, acoustical baffles hang from the ceilings between the rows of lights. LED lighting is employed throughout the building, most notably in the lobby where the wing-like suspended chandeliers appear from the outside like a flock of white birds or butterflies....
This thing is an architectural wonder. Cost was around $114 million and they expect the energy gizmos to "pay off" (i.e., be worth the extra expenditure over an ordinary building) over 12.5 years. LOL, if only graduates "investment" in their own "life costs" could be paid off that quickly!
Of course, no mathematical model can accurately predict how many lemmings will swoon over this building and tell UVA and U. of Maryland "NO DICE" as a result.
The best feature of all to the building's design?
The architects say the 12-story atrium will siphon off rising hot air.
Fire away, law profs and deans! This building has been specifically designed to deal with the hot air you endlessly spout! So not only will it attract cracked-out LSAT-taking marks into thinking law is cool and funky, it'll attract lateral hires who tire of the stuffy corridors of Columbia and Yale.
Because let's be honest: if every law school in the country built this building, many of the profession's problems would be instantly solved.
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