Talk:Alan Turing Building

This reads like PR

"These proved completely unsuited to the activities of a mathematics department (and arguably any academic department) as travel between floors in lifts (and uninviting stairways) discourages interaction between mathematicians resulting from chance encounter"

Why do lifts discourage people from bumping into each other?! I'd have thought they would be just as likely to meet in a lift as in any other method of moving between floors. Sure everyone likes a shiney new building at least when they aren't paying for it but i can't help but feel we are just repeating the spin of those who need to justify white elephants like this.

P.S. there are now notices stuck up in the former umist main building calling for the president of the university to be sacked! Plugwash 23:24, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

The point is that you start a (mathematical) conversation and a few minutes later one of you jumps out. The other has to choose between jumping out at the wrong floor or abandoning the conversation. The ATB is to this extent the kind of building the mathematicians asked for. Also from the point of view of the mathematicians, getting something like the building they wanted (ok so there were some things they didn't get) is a victory for mathematicians over university Estates Departments and Architects. The spin if there is any is coming from the mathematicians who have finally got some of what they wanted instead of being forced to work in unsuitable buildings. From the user's perspective the Maths Tower, and to a lesser extent MSS, while not white elephants, were not fit for purpose. Billlion 16:13, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Refs added. More comments about maths and buildings on my Blog.Billlion 09:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

One reference removed - as I read it, the implication was that Jonathan Glancey's article confirmed that statement that staircases stimulate discussion more than lifts. I don't doubt this for a minute, but (unless I've completely missed something in the article), it doesn't even mention lifts or staircases. Chrisjohnson 22:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Is this relevant? Billlion 16:13, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

It is when the reason they are calling for the president to be sacked is lavish spending (much of which is on theese new buildings). Plugwash 18:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh I see what you mean. It sounds like a misunderstanding though as these are capital projects, will be balanced out in the long run by disposal of assets like the Tabley Estate (it is hard to justify why the University needs farm land unless we use it to teach agriculture!) and indeed buildings made vaccant by the new ones like MSS. That part is actually going according to plan, buildings are getting finished ahead of time and on budget. The deficit results from the income falling below predicted levels, higher than anticipated pay settlements and rising energy costs. The problem is that these costs are incurred every year where as buildings are a one off (well they typically last 30-40 years). Note also that if it works as it is meant to, with all that insulation, solar panels and lights that go off if you don't move, new buildings will save on energy. Anyway I don't see anything solid enough to be encyclopedic. And in my opinion a university being 5% of its turnover in the red is not even news. The biggest story in this is that the university has screwed up its public (and employee and student) relations by making a song and dance about a small deficit. If the campaign against the president gains any momentum, for example if it is big enough to make it on conventional news media, then it might just about qualify for inclusion in the article on Alan Gilbert. But a few posters around campus is n't really enough (for example compare with the level of opposition to MUPL at Melbourne). Billlion 20:50, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

References

My apologies for belabouring the references in this article, but I think that having them in place would benefit those reading the article, at the very least by reassuring them that the article is accurate - something that Wikipedia in general has lots of issues with. Once we've got everything referenced, then I think it would be worth getting the article rated as a Good Article. Mike Peel (talk) 21:01, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering if it was getting a bit over referenced, maybe a bit more appropriate for something controversial or an article about a living person? It seems that not all the minutes of City Council Planning meetings are online so it is hard to reference the exact discusion about the requirement for an overarching roof to make it one building. It was reported to the School of Mathematics via the architects and there is surely some paper record. Other specifics of the design appear sporadically in specialist trade journals, but I have the feeling that a story about "how we cunningly got around a limitation the planners imposed on us" might not be something they want to shout about. Anyway yes it would be good to try for good article status.Billlion (talk) 11:29, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I take the approach that every fact came from somewhere, so why not state where it came from? In this case, I'll admit that that doesn't work so well as some of the facts came from verbal discussions / us physically viewing the building, but that's where we start running into original research. As for being overreferenced, take a look at the references on Lovell Telescope... Mike Peel (talk) 17:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Number of stories

Let's get this sorted out, rather than continually changing. :-) There are 5 levels in the building - in the northern two fingers, ground floor and floors 1 and 2 are occupied by Maths and floor 3 is occupied by astronomy. In the central finger, there is a 4th floor which is used for servers and lab space by astronomy, as well as some building-related machines (air con etc.). The southernmost finger is used by PSI from ground to 3rd floor at least. I don't know for definite whether there are fourth floors on the north and south fingers, but as the building is the same height for all fingers it seems likely.

So, do we call that 5 stories? Unfortunately, I'm not aware of a reference for the above, but can provide photos of the 4th floor in the central finger... Mike Peel (talk) 08:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC) Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 18:46, 29 June 2017 (UTC)