Re: [Phys-L] quality of life +- "usable" space ... was: new physics lab construction

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

This is mostly in response to some comments I got off list.
We agree that a coreless design counts as a monumental
screw-up (in most cases).  The question is, how is this 
even possible?  Paraphrasing slightly:

> My guess is that this has something to do with cost per useable sq ft
> That's all folks seem to care about

That's part of it.  The anti-core argument might make a 
little bit of sense if total space was at a premium, e.g.
if they were building a lab situated in downtown Tokyo 
or NYC or the space station.

Anywhere else, if you need more usable space, keep the cores
and make the whole building a few feet bigger.  The cost of
the footprint of the building (in most places) is trivial.
The cost of the outer shell is trivial.  It's the stuff 
/inside/ that costs money.

One problem as I see it is that the core "looks bad" when
nitwits look at the blueprints.  They think that if they
get rid of the core, they can get additional usable space
for the same price.  This is just wrong.  The price goes
up because you need some other way to route the utilities.
So in terms of initial construction, the cost per usable
square foot is about the same either way.  Then (!) the 
core turns a profit whenever there is a renovation -- even
something minor.  Things that could have been a major hassle 
become trivial.  Furthermore, the core makes the "usable" 
space /more usable/ and more congenial.

It's misleading to call the core "unusable" space.
 -- It gets used for storage.
 -- It gets used for noisy vacuum pumps.
 -- It gets used for routing utilities.  Suppose you want
  to upgrade the networking from nothing to twisted pair to
  10base5 to 10baseT to 100baseT to optical.  With a core 
  this a *lot* easier.  Been there, done that.


Here's another psychological factor:  People don't build a 
new building unless the old building is cramped.  So they 
come at it assuming that space is ultra-precious.  They 
forget that if you're not cramped, you don't need to 
optimize space per se;  you can optimize quality of life.
By using a little more space, you can disproportionately 
improve the usability of the space.

Here's a non-core example of the same idea:  A rear-projection
screen achieves a nice result, if you want to be able to show
video on a large screen in a well-lit room, so you can actually
/work/ while the video is on.
http://themuseumoftelephony.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/att-bedminster-noc-tour-circa-2013/
  (In contrast, front projection requires the room to be
  dark.  This is "almost" required by Liouville's theorem.)
Rear projection requires a nontrivial amount of space behind 
the screen.  Flat-screen TV technology  is changing so as to 
make this no longer a super-good example, but it used to be 
a fine example of "unusable" space being used to make the 
"usable" space more usable.

Bottom line:  Don't optimize for space per se.  Optimize for
quality of life.