Why are we on the first floor?
Published on Nov 1, 2006 at 4:25 pm.
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Filed under college teaching.
OK. Here’s a question that I wish that there were a good answer for. Why are our physics and astronomy labs on the first floor of the science building? And this isn’t just for my college. It seems to be common elsewhere, as well. If the building is two stories, unless all the labs are upstairs, the physics labs are always downstairs. If the building is more than two stories, then they are sometimes on the second floor, but they are always fairly low in the building. Biology and chemistry seem to normally be at the top of the heap. Now, normally that isn’t a problem. But today, it is.
The students are taking a test today in lab. They are all working quietly. Suddenly all the sinks in the room erupt in a geyser of water, followed by an acrid sulfurous smell. Is it the end of the world? Is a volcano suddenly forming under the building? Is hell rising up to get us? No. None of that. The chemistry labs upstairs poured stuff down the drains. And we, of course, are downstairs.
Now, it isn’t always sinks erupting that gets us. Sometimes the chemicals that they pour into the drains simply eat away at the pipes and gaskets, and then we get things dripping on us. Or, their sinks stop up, and water overflows and comes raining downstairs, or sometimes the pipes break. Yeah, I’ve seen it all. (Not all here, but at other universities where physics is downstairs.)
I’ve asked before, but I never liked the answers. I am told that chemistry and biology are always having plumbing problems and leaks, so they are upstairs in order for the plumbing to be more easily accessed from below. Yeah. There you have it. They have more leaks. So their labs are placed above the people who use more electricity and computers. Smart. That argument doesn’t hold water around here (so to speak) because there are underground utility tunnels everywhere. When they put data lines into our labs, they ran them up from below. That means that there is a below, right?Â
The other answer that I get a lot is that chemistry and biology use more nasty chemicals, so they need to be on the upper floors in order for the fume hoods to exhaust to the roof. Well, that makes more sense to me, except that we have a couple of fume hoods down here on the first floor, and they, too, exhaust to the room (just with longer flues).Â
Now, don’t get me wrong. There are some advantages to being on the first floor. When we need to take the telescopes out, then we just wheel them out from the lab right out the door. Loading and unloading equipment is easy: just back up to the door. But, still, I don’t like chemicals raining down on me from above!
Well, the sulfurous smell has sort of dissipated, and my eyes are no longer watering. So, I am just griping.  But, if there are any architects out there reading this, and you are called upon to design a science building for a college, think about the placement of the labs, and who is going to be rained on when (that’s when, not if) the plumbing starts having problems from the chemistry labs.
-Astroprof
