The Society of College and University Planning was founded in 1965 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor during an informal gathering of campus planners frustrated with the lack of professional exchange in their emerging field. Rapid postwar enrollment growth and massive campus expansion projects had created urgent needs for long-range physical planning, yet few institutions had dedicated planners or shared knowledge.
A small group, led by University of Michigan planners George J. Bruha and Frederick W Mayer met in Ann Arbor to discuss common challenges facing other State of Michigan settlements; joined by Stanford, Ohio State and the University of Illinois. They decided to create a formal organization to foster collaboration, research, and professional development. In 1966, with Michigan’s support, SCUP was officially established as a nonprofit with its first office on the Ann Arbor campus. Its founding principle—integrated planning linking academics, finances, and facilities—remains central today.
Early operations benefited from administrative support (aegis) provided by the University of Michigan, including office space and resources in Ann Arbor. This arrangement persisted until a financial crisis in the late 1970s (1976–1980), during which SCUP relocated to New York.
The decoupling—marking full operational and administrative independence from the University of Michigan—occurred in 1980, when SCUP returned to Ann Arbor as a self-sustaining nonprofit headquartered at a separate location –1330 Eisenhower Place — less than a mile walk from Standards Michigan‘s front door at 455 East Eisenhower.
* Of the 220 ANSI Accredited Standards Developers, the State of Michigan ranks 3rd in the ranking of U.S. states with the most ANSI-accredited standards developers (ASDs) headquartered there; behind the Regulatory Hegemons of California and ChicagoLand and excluding the expected cluster foxtrot of non-profits domiciled in the Washington-New York Deep State Megalopolis. Much of Michigan’s presence in the private consensus standards space originates from its industrial ascendency through most of the 1900’s.
Okay. Can you tell me more about the inspiration for the Cherokee gothic architecture there
Yes. The interesting thing is that “Cherokee Gothic” wasn’t originally the name of a formal architectural movement. Frank Lloyd Wright coined the phrase after visiting OU—apparently in 1946—to describe what he saw already happening there: recognizable Collegiate Gothic forms combined with patterns and details understood as deriving from Oklahoma’s Native American traditions. The Library of Congress describes essentially that combination.
The underlying story begins earlier. After OU’s original university building burned in 1903, English professor Vernon Louis Parrington devised a campus plan. Much of it was never built, but his conception produced the North and South Ovals that still organize the settlement. The Gothic buildings subsequently placed around those spaces gave OU the collegiate vocabulary familiar from eastern universities—but in Oklahoma it evolved differently.
The distinctive visual effect comes from brickwork and light stone rather than the heavy gray masonry we associate with Princeton, Yale or Oxford. You’ll see pointed arches, buttresses, towers and Gothic massing, but also patterned brickwork and geometric ornament. One architect involved with OU’s later residential colleges described the contrasting red brick and pale limestone as making the buildings appear lighter and more animated than conventional Collegiate Gothic. He also recounts the explanation that Wright saw something reminiscent of the rhythmic patterns of Native American blankets.
6
Bizzell Memorial Library is probably the mature expression to study. Built in 1929, its brick surfaces, pale stone tracery and vertical Gothic forms are recognizably collegiate, but the ornament and color make it very different from an imported English quadrangle. OU itself describes Native American influence as having been present in the university’s architecture since its territorial beginnings.
There’s another wrinkle you might enjoy for STDMi: Bruce Goff later made OU one of the most unconventional architecture schools in America. That isn’t the same thing as Cherokee Gothic. Under Goff, students were actively discouraged from simply copying European historical styles and were encouraged to draw from the Oklahoma landscape, ordinary objects, unusual materials and Native American design. In other words, the campus already embodied the question Goff’s school later pursued much more radically: what should architecture in Oklahoma look like if it isn’t simply architecture imported from somewhere else?
That may be the most useful hook for your post. Cherokee Gothic isn’t especially interesting because someone mixed two decorative styles. It’s interesting because OU was trying to make the familiar American university Gothic belong to Oklahoma.
Giovanni Paolo Panini, An architectural capriccio with figures among Roman ruins
The post-pandemic #WiseCampus transformation requires significant capital to meet the sustainability goals of its leadership. Campuses are cities-within-cities and are, to a fair degree, financed in a similar fashion. Tax-free bonds are an effective instrument for school districts, colleges and universities — and the host community in which they are nested — for raising capital for infrastructure projects while also providing investors with, say $10,000 to $100,000, to allocate toward a tax-free dividend income stream that produces a return in the range of 2 to 8 percent annually.
An aging population may be receptive to investment opportunities that protect their retirement savings from taxation.
Once a month, we walk through the prospectuses of one or two bond offerings of school districts, colleges and universities and examine offering specifics regarding infrastructure construction, operations and maintenance. We pay particular attention to details regarding “continuing operations”. Somehow the education industry has to pay for its green agenda. See our CALENDAR for the next Finance colloquium; open to everyone.
The interactive map provided by Electronic Municipal Market Access identifies state-by-state listings of tax-free bonds that contribute to the construction and operation of education facilities; some of which involved university-affiliated medical research and healthcare delivery enterprises.
CLICK ON IMAGE FOR INTERACTIVE MAP
If you need help cutting through this list please feel free to click in any day at 11 AM Eastern time. Use the login credentials at the upper right of our hope page. We collaborate with subject matter experts at Municipal Analytics and UBS.
*We see the pandemic as a driver for a step-reduction in cost in all dimensions of education communities. We coined the term with a hashtag about two years ago.
*College and university infrastructure projects are classified with public school districts under the rubric “municipal bonds” at the moment. CLICK HERE for more information.
This content is accessible to paid subscribers. To view it please enter your password below or send mike@standardsmichigan.com a request for subscription details.
This content is accessible to paid subscribers. To view it please enter your password below or send mike@standardsmichigan.com a request for subscription details.
Research from the World Economic Forum has shown that improvements in the design and construction process can be achieved by using international standards like ICMS to gain comparable and consistent data. ICMS provides a high-level structure and format for classifying, defining, measuring, recording, analysing and presenting construction and other life-cycle costs.
Alumni Memorial Hall was built as a war memorial and multi-purpose alumni building — not originally as an art museum; though it became — and still is — a gathering point for alumni who donated their collections to the University. Its inspiration originated in 1864 shortly after the Civil War, to honor University of Michigan students, faculty, and alumni who died in that conflict and all conflicts thereafter.
“View of the Colosseum” 1747 Giovanni Paolo Panini
Play is the making of civilization—how one plays the game
more to the point than whether the game is won or lost.
The purpose of this standard is to establish the minimum requirements to safeguard health, safety and general welfare through structural strength, means of egress facilities, stability and safety to life and property relative to the construction, alteration, repair, operation and maintenance of new and existing temporary and permanent bench bleacher, folding and telescopic seating and grandstands. This standard is intended for adoption by government agencies and organizations setting model codes to achieve uniformity in technical design criteria in building codes and other regulations.
This title is on the standing agenda of our Sport, Olahraga (Indonesian), رياضة (Arabic), colloquia. You are welcomed to join us any day at with the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
At the April International Code Council Group A Hearings there were three candidate code changes related to the safety standard of care for athletic venues:
These concepts will likely be coordinated with another ICC regulatory product —ICC 300 – Standard on Bleachers, Folding and Telescopic Seating, and Grandstands — covered here previously. ICC 300 is a separate document but some of the safety concepts track through both.
The ICC Public Comment Hearings on Group A comments in Richmond Virginia ended a few days ago (CLICK HERE). The balloting is being processed by the appropriate committee and will be released soon. For the moment, we are happy to walk through the proposed changes – that will become part of the 2021 International Building Code — any day at 11 AM Eastern time. We will walk through all athletic and recreation enterprise codes and standards on Friday, November 2nd, 11 AM Eastern time. For access to either teleconference, click on the LIVE Link at the upper right corner of our home page.
Issue: [15-283]
Category: Athletics & Recreation, Architectural, Public Safety
Contact: Mike Anthony, Richard Robben, Jack Janveja
The International Code Council has launched a new revision cycle for its consensus document — ICC 300 – Standard on Bleachers, Folding and Telescopic Seating, and Grandstands. The purpose of the effort is the development of appropriate, reasonable, and enforceable model health and safety provisions for new and existing installations of all types of bleachers and bleacher-type seating, including fixed and folding bleachers for indoor, outdoor, temporary, and permanent installations. Such provisions would serve as a model for adoption and use by enforcement agencies at all levels of government in the interest of national uniformity.
Comments are due December 4th. The document is free. You may obtain an electronic copy from: https://www.iccsafe.org/codes-techsupport/standards/is-ble/. Comments may be sent to Edward Wirtschoreck, (888) 422-7233, ewirtschoreck@iccsafe with copy to psa@ansi.org)
* With some authority, we can claim that without Standards Michigan, many education industry trade associations would not be as involved in asserting the interest of facility managers in global consensus standards development processes. See ABOUT.
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
