“Temple, Fountain and Cave in Sezincote Park” | Thomas Daniell (1819) | Yale Center for British Art
From time to time we break from our interest in lowering the cost of our “cities-within-cities” to enjoy the work of our colleagues responsible for seasonal ambience and public art. We have a dedicated post that celebrates the accomplishments of our gardeners and horticultural staff. Today we dedicate a post to campus fountains–a focal point for gathering and a place for personal reflection for which there is no price.
Alas, we find a quickening of standards developing organizations growing their footprint in the spaces around buildings now. They used to confine the scopes of their standardization enterprises to the building envelope. That day will soon be behind us as an energized cadre of water rights social justice workers, public safety, sustainability and energy conservation professionals descend upon campus fountains with prescriptive requirements for evaporation rates, bromine concentrations, training, certification and inspections. In other words regulators and conformity functionaries will outnumber benefactors and fountain designers 1 million to 1.
We will deal with all that when the day comes. For the moment, let’s just enjoy them.
We are happy to walk you through the relevant structural, water safety, plumbing and electrical issues any day at 11 AM EST during our daily standing online teleconferences. Click on any image for author attribution, photo credit or other information.
Purdue University
The Great Court at Trinity College, Cambridge
Regent University
University of Washington
Hauptgebäude der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Bayern, Deutschland
College of the Desert / Palm Desert, California
California Institute of Technology
Berry College
Utah Valley University
Universitat d’Alacant / Sant Vicent del Raspeig, Spain
“Spring Night, Harlem River” | Ernest Lawson (1913)
Many school districts, colleges and universities are affected by the flooding in the Central United States this week; inspiration enough for revisiting the technical and management codes and standards to avoid and/or mitigate damages. The consensus documents developed by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and its affiliate Structural Engineering institute (ASCE-SEI) — should appear in the design guidelines given to professional services firms retained by the facility construction, operations and maintenance workgroups.
The relevant standard in this space is ASCE 24 Flood Resistant Design which is developed jointly with the ASCE-SEI and technical committees of the International Code Council. Apparently the 2014 Edition is the latest edition so that means that during 2019 will be the beginning of another revision cycle (according to ANSI requirements for 5-year revisions/re-affirmations).
From the ASCE 24 prospectus:
Flood Resistant Design and Construction, ASCE/SEI 24-14, provides minimum requirements for design and construction of structures located in flood hazard areas and subject to building code requirements. Identification of flood prone structures is based on flood hazard maps, studies, and other public information. This standard applies to new structures, including subsequent work, and to work classified as substantial improvement of existing structures that are not historic. Standard ASCE/SEI 24-14 introduces a new concept, Flood Design Class, that bases requirements for a structure on the risk associated with unacceptable performance.
The standard includes requirements for the following: basic siting and design and construction requirements for structures in flood hazard areas; minimum elevations for the lowest floor, flood damage-resistant materials, and floodproofing measures, each tied to a structure’s Flood Design Class; structures in high risk flood hazard areas subject to flooding associated with alluvial fans, flash floods, mudslides, erosion, high velocity flow, coastal wave action, or ice jams and debris; structures in coastal high hazard areas (V Zones) and Coastal A Zones; flood damage-resistant materials; dry floodproofing and wet floodproofing; attendant utilities and equipment, including electrical service, plumbing systems, mechanical/HVAC systems, and elevators; building access; and miscellaneous construction, including decks and porches, concrete slabs, garages and carports, accessory storage structures, chimneys and fireplaces, pools, and tanks. A detailed commentary containing explanatory and supplementary information to assist users of the standard is included for each chapter.
Standard ASCE/SEI 24-14 updates and replaces the previous Standard, ASCE/SEI 24-05. It provides essential guidance on design and construction to structural engineers, design professionals, code officials, floodplain managers, and building owners. The standard is adopted by reference in model building codes.
Keep in mind that model building codes usually change on a 3-year cycle while this standard changes on a 5-year cycle (though intermediates changes can, and do, happen).
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When a technical committee is ready for its proposed changes to receive public comment, those changes will be posted here:
We always encourage direct communication by user-interest technical experts that are either on the direct payroll of an educational institution or work for an outsourced expert agency such as an architectural engineering firm that has deep expertise in safety and economic trade-offs.
You will need to set up an access account. You may also communicate directly with the American Society of Civil Engineers, 1801 Alexander Bell Dr., Reston, VA 20191. Contact: James Neckel (jneckel@asce.org). Note that ASCE’s Annual Conference is hosted October 10-13 in Miami Florida. CLICK HERE for registration information. We encourage our colleagues in #StandardsFlorida to attend this conference for a front row seat on technical committee action.
We are open every day at 11 AM Eastern time to discuss technical specifics of these, and all other consensus documents affecting #TotalCostofOwnership of education facilities. We also devote one hour per month walking through water-related safety and sustainability codes and standards. See our CALENDAR for the next teleconference; open to everyone.
Anglosphere (United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) ~ $36.7T (or ~33% of GGDP)
United States GDP $29.3T (or about 26% of GGDP)
“Livres des Merveilles du Monde” 1300 | Marco Polo | Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Today we break down consultations on titles relevant to the technology and management of the real assets of education communities in the United States specifically; but with sensitivity to the global education markets where thousands of like-minded organizations also provide credentialing, instruction, research, a home for local fine arts and sport.
“Even apart from the instability due to speculation, there is the instability due to the characteristic of human nature that a large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than on a mathematical expectation, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits — a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities. Enterprise only pretends to itself to be mainly actuated by the statements in its own prospectus, however candid and sincere that prospectus may be. Only a little more than an expedition to the South Pole is it based on an exact calculation of benefits to come. Thus if the animal spirits are dimmed and the spontaneous optimism falters, leaving us to depend on nothing but a mathematical expectation, enterprise will fade and die; — though fears of loss may have a basis no more reasonable than hopes of profit had before.”
Extended Versions Certain standards are required to be read in tandem with another standard, which is known as a reference (or parent) document. The extended version (EXV) of an IEC Standard facilitates the user to be able to consult both IEC standards simultaneously in a single, easy-to-use document.
A partial list of projects with which we have been engaged as an active participant; starting with the original University of Michigan enterprise in the late 1990’s and related collaborations with IEEE and others: (In BOLD font we identify committees with open consultations requiring a response from US stakeholders before next month’s Hello World! colloquium)
IEC/TC 8, et al System aspects of electrical energy supply
We collaborate with the appropriate ANSI US TAG; or others elsewhere in academia. We have begun tracking ITU titles with special attention to ITU Radio Communication Sector.
main(){printf("hello, world\n");}
We have collaborations with Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Sapienza – Università di Roma, Universität Zürich, Universität Potsdam, Université de Toulouse. Universidade Federal de Itajubá, University of Windsor, the University of Alberta, to name a few — most of whom collaborate with us on electrotechnology issues. Standards Michigan and its 50-state affiliates are (obviously) domiciled in the United States. However, and for most issues, we defer to the International Standards expertise at the American National Standards Institute
* A “Hello, World!” program generally is a computer program that outputs or displays the message “Hello, World!”. Such a program is very simple in most programming languages (such as Python and Javascript) and is often used to illustrate the basic syntax of a programming language. It is often the first program written by people learning to code. It can also be used as a sanity test to make sure that a computer language is correctly installed, and that the operator understands how to use it.
The ISO Research Grant is awarded annually to one postgraduate student (Masters, PhD or postdoc) to conduct a research study related to a theme proposed by ISO. The grant amount is 25,000 CHF. A different theme is proposed each year, but the broad focus is on evaluating the impacts of international standards. We have covered it since its inception in the early days of the original Standards Michigan enterprise. (See ABOUT). We see no information on the next revision cycle but can provide information about the 2026 grant cycle in the link below:
(sometimes numbered or referred to as poem 22) by E. E. Cummings.
writersalmanac.publicradio.org
It begins with the lines you recalled (phrased as “you shall above all things be glad and young”) and continues in Cummings’s characteristic style—lowercase letters, unconventional spacing/punctuation, and playful wordplay. It urges the addressee to stay joyful and youthful in spirit, notes that youth and gladness transform whatever life brings, includes a passage about love and mystery, and ends with the memorable preference for learning song from one bird over teaching stars not to dance.
americanpoems.com
The poem appears in collections of his work (such as Selected Poems and the complete poems editions). Because Cummings’s works remain under copyright, the full text isn’t reproduced here; you can find it in standard published editions or reliable poetry sites/anthologies that have permission.
University food service increasingly treats international variety as both an educational and marketing virtue. There is nothing inherently wrong with variety in fair measure. Yet an outsized emphasis on cuisines outside American and Anglosphere traditions can cause universities to neglect the foodways of the very nation and institutions that have attracted generations of international students.
Food is part of the inheritance of an educational settlement. Regional American cooking, the English ploughman’s lunch, Canadian breads and preserves, Australian meat pies and the ordinary dishes of Scotland, Wales and Ireland carry histories of agriculture, climate, season and family life. They deserve a place beside newer arrivals.
Universities need not choose between hospitality and inheritance. A generous table can accommodate both. Indeed, international students may reasonably expect to encounter the distinctive food traditions of their host country. Cosmopolitanism is most interesting when cultures remain recognizable. University kitchens can welcome the world without forgetting the food already at home.
School spirit need not require everyone to dress like the athletic department.
Licensed campus spirit wear is good business. Colleges earn royalties while students and alumni become walking advertisements for the institution. The arrangement is understandable, profitable and nearly universal. Yet something may be lost when the university wardrobe collapses into hoodies, sweatshirts, athletic jerseys and logo-covered leisurewear.
Young adulthood is a brief season. Students arrive on campus at an age when health, vitality and physical beauty are often at their height. They are also meeting one another, forming friendships, attending dinners, concerts and games and, whether consciously or not, presenting themselves to possible future partners. Dress has always been part of that social language.
A university therefore has interests beyond maximizing licensed-apparel revenue. An educational settlement should leave room for elegance, individuality and occasion: dresses, jackets, sweaters, skirts, proper shoes and well-cut trousers alongside the inevitable sweatshirt.
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwBpic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
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