I like the cars parked underneath the ground-floor “awnings.”
Charm is not a high point
Mean Architecture
Mean Architecture stops giant behemoths in their tracks!
Punchcard
It’s not only me…
The students and their parents consistently made references to Simmons Hall as being a fortress, a metal block, and a metal sponge.
"A Modern More or Less Humane" by Joseph E. Pollack for Architecture Week
When Steven Holl set out to design a dormitory that looked like a sponge, he wanted holes. Lots of holes.
"Sponge Life" by Susan Nasr for Technology Review
He got the idea to launch a student contest called “Drill a Hole in Simmons Hall”... it called for a cloud-shaped zeppelin to fly over Simmons to shuttle students to class.
Nasar, Ibid
An underground trade developed in wrenches to unbolt the furniture. “The beds weigh 250 pounds. You can get crushed to death by them.”
Nasr, Ibid