 where we are recording, pursuant to the governor's order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, general law chapter 30A, section 18, this meeting of the Disability Access Advisory Committee is being conducted via remote participation. I'd like to begin with a roll call for the members of the DAC. So I'll begin with our chair and we'll just check to see that you can hear and be heard by the other members. Myra Ross. Elise Link. Yes. Okay. Sarah and Darren. Here. All right. Ian. Roadwall. Yes, here. Okay. And Cody Rooney. All right. So thank you. Now that we've done the roll call and we have a quorum, our chair is welcome to call the meeting to order. Okay. Thank you. First of all, I'd like to thank everybody for coming on really short notice to talk about this so that we can weigh in on the project before the deadline that the AAB has because they don't give us very much time. So I appreciate the project people and the committee for coming out on such short notice. So we have a proposal for the, I'm not sure what it's called, computer something or other building. Please explain what it is really called. It's a proposal for a variance in the auditorium at the lower level of this building. So if you would introduce yourself and tell us what exactly you're proposing and why that would be terrific. So I'll introduce myself. I'm Dan Aaron's principal with Perkins Eastman, the architects. We have with us Bert Ewert who is the project manager for UMass design and construction management. My colleague and the project manager, Carolyn Day, who will walk us and walk you through the project. And we're also joined by Ted Dao who is our code consultant with JSCE code consultants. And I'm not sure, is anybody else from our group on? I don't see anyone else listed. So thank you for inviting us. This is the Computer Science Laboratories. It's an addition to, well, it's a separate building adjacent to and connected to the existing computer sciences building at the north side of campus on Governor's Drive. And it's to support the community of the computer sciences college which are already in two buildings and this will make three but they don't really have a community center. And so that's one of the main reasons for the project together with expanding their faculty by 40 faculty and associated undergraduate and graduate students and researchers. And so with that, Carolyn, are you able to share and present? Before I do, I didn't know if Bert wanted to say a word. I'll just very quickly say, I'm Bert Ewert, I'm a capital project manager here at UMass. I've been involved on UMass campus now or been on the UMass campus for over 18 years. I'm a member of the AAB and the AAC committees at UMass. So I'm familiar with the needs of the various disabled communities that we have on campus and really excited to be able to present this project to the town of Amherst's committee on this. And I think just, I'm gonna give it back over to Carolyn and the Perkins Eastman team to show you what it is that we have in mind. I think you've received the package from the MAB, hopefully or and or from me on what the variances are that we're asking for you to consider. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Carolyn. Thank you. Thank you, Bert. Thank you all. I am the project manager for Perkins Eastman, the architect on the phone. And so just briefly this, I'm gonna, I have some visuals to share. I will do my best to explain them. I've never been really good at doing the image to text descriptions and such. So hopefully I'm better verbally than I am typed. But as Dan said, this is a new building connected to the existing computer science building. It is four stories. There is a grade change from the first floor on the north to the second floor on the south. And I will walk through the plans and describe that a little bit more. But what we are seeking today is actually two variances. One, which Maya mentioned already is at the auditorium where we have sloped aisles that by the building code are allowed not to have rails but because they are skinny. So the idea is you can hold on to the seat backs on either side, but per the Massachusetts rules that is not allowed. So we're seeking a variance there. The other one is we have a large connecting stair going from the first floor to the second floor in the main space. And that has a continuous rail on one side non-continuous on the other side. So that is the variance we are seeking but as a community stair. And so we know you guys are gonna wanna review that and really talk through that design and we look forward to your feedback on that. So. Well, I wasn't even aware of that one. So I don't know anything about it. So that was all in the package. Yeah, I'm sure it was in the packet. It wasn't described verbally and I couldn't find it. Okay. So I am going to go ahead and share my screen. Okay, let me know if you guys can all see that. Nope. Great. Okay. So what I am sharing right now is just, I have a splash image that's the north entrance to the new building. And I'm gonna go into this, just describe this a little bit more in depth later. So that's just a quick introduction to the project but what we are seeing here centered in the image is the entrance into the building which is kind of in the middle of the space we have that it's divided into two halves with a connecting element and then to the right on this image, which is to the west, because we're looking towards the south, there is a kind of white box building with ribbon windows. That's the existing building. So there are two of them are connected to each other. L-shaped? Sort of L-shaped? The existing building is an I bar shaped and then we're kind of connecting to the end it's like an I on its side and we're connected to the end of that and our building is kind of triangular. That's to fit into the site. I'm gonna pull up a site image in a second and I think I can talk through it a little bit when I get there. The building is on the north edge of campus. I've got a campus map up right now and can you guys see my pointer? No, I can't, it's too tiny for me. Yeah, that's right. Can I do, here we go. Yeah, I'm just gonna. Does this work? That's there anyway. If this is a PDF, Carolyn if you can just zoom right in. Yeah, yeah, there you go. So, so here we are on campus. Yeah. Oh, I'm scrolling the wrong way. Oh, where is the mouse again? Okay, so I just turned off the annotation so that I was scrolling the wrong direction. I highlighted in green here where the building is at the north edge of campus. Can you describe where the building is? It is right on the, it is Governor's Drive is the road that circulates events, the campus on the north side, which then turns into Commonwealth Avenue as it turns around and goes by the hurricane and whatever. So this building is right on Governor's Drive. So if you're familiar with campus and you're driving in from the east, you go around the rotary, you get onto Governor's Drive. It kind of bends around the turn and Governor's Drive then wraps back around the existing computer science building. And what we're doing is nestling in the new building between the existing and Governor's Drive. So it's right up against the road. Which is the existing building? Can you circle it around it? So there's only the existing building is showing on this map right here. I see. The existing building is right here where it says computer science. Okay. And the new one is? And then the new one is going to go right here. I'm gonna pull up a, I'm gonna pull up a site plan right now. Okay. I see. If I can zoom back out. So when you said shape like an eye. Okay. Do you mean you would have also shaped like an H? Yes. So I've pulled up a zoomed in site plan. Okay. So this is looking, we've just oriented it a little bit so that, you know, north isn't quite straight up at the top. So it's a little bit easier to see. So what we have here is the existing computer science building. I can pull up the annotation again. So this is the outline of the existing computer science building here. So it's like an eye sitting on its side. It runs the long way, runs from east to west. And then the new building is this kind of triangular shape to the east. And there's a connecting section between the two. That's part of the new building that connects the two buildings together so that they can, well, they're physically separate with a, you know, party wall. You know, they can act as one together. A big part of the mission of this building is to create a home for computer science. Right now they are in a few buildings, but they don't have like a central place where the students can hang out or, you know, any place for studies. Like all of their square footage is packed with classrooms and research space, et cetera. So there's no gathering zones. There's no large teaching spaces that is for computer science. And so the goal of this building is to create that. And a lot of what this building does is create moves architecturally to harken back to other parts of campus and also making this connection to the pure computer science building that's right next to it. So that's why they're connected. We've aligned all the floors. There's no changes in elevation between the floors. The existing building is three stories. We have one additional story on this one. But the other, Or a higher. One higher. So the first floor is half buried. So the north side here is lower on the side. And then it goes up. There's a 16 foot change in grade as you go around the governor's drive up to the top of the south corner of the new building. So what we're doing is we're coming in on the south side on the second floor and on the north side on the first floor. I interject for a second. It's clean, Dan. So one thing that is happening here is that these two computer science buildings are separated from the next building down on the page or south. And there's a driveway there now, but the site slopes away fairly dramatically from high on the right to lower on the left. And the pathways and roadways there are not accessible. And so if you can see some jigging and jogging of pathways, that's all very carefully designed by our landscape architect colleagues to make this all an accessible exterior path all the way from governor's drive at the east down to the existing building. So we're providing an accessible path that doesn't exist there. And what about the building to the south of it? I don't know what building that is. That's E-Lab one engineering lab, which we're not addressing right now. You're not trying to make this accessible to that. No. No, they're not connected. And then as a practical matter, that building, the accesses to the sort of west and south, and this is a side with a loading dock and it's not an accessible route. Okay. Yeah, thank you, Dan, for bringing that up. That's a big part of what's happening with the site here is making this accessible because right now it's a pretty steep drive. And so someone who is, students might think that they can get down and wouldn't be able to. So a big part of the site design is making this accessible route from across the site, east to west, and then eventually because this is gonna become more of the through path with the campus master plan, this will be accessed more and more. So it's really important that this become accessible path. And I have some images, which kind of show some renderings that show what that looks like, which I'm happy to go to unless there's questions about the plan. I have a question. Is there a sidewalk along Governor's Drive along the west side of Governor's Drive along the side? And is that an accessible sidewalk that connects to the rest of the campus? It is, the sidewalk connects to the rest of campus, but the slope is not accessible the whole way. Okay, got it. And so we're also providing van drop offs. Oh, okay. You go right ahead. Yeah, that's exciting. Sorry. I got that. I was excited. I was excited. Because you cannot get there from other parts of campus without a van because of the topography of the van. Because of the topography. So we actually are providing two drop offs in the plan right now. Well, sorry, I didn't mean to click forward. Okay, so this- I have a question, very good question. The name I look at it says new computer science laboratories. Are they really laboratories or is just the- They're computational laboratories. So it's people sitting at desks doing computer work. And then there is also some amount of small electronics work and there's a maker space in the building for the students to use. Oh, but it's not like laboratories. It's not. There's no- Yeah, there's one fume hood in case they want to do some small chemical stuff like when they're assembling things in the maker space but there's no research with chemistry or biology or anything like that in this building. So it's computational labs. Like work spaces. Sort of. It's work spaces, yes. Correct. Okay. So for this plan I've just pulled up is a diagram showing the accessibility around the site. So there's a lot of green arrows here kind of showing what the new accessible routes are that we're doing around that we were pointing out on the last plan. So you can see from governor's drive that kind of slopes starts to slope down to the entrance on the south entrance on the second floor. Then it slopes down to a plaza drop which is also the loading dock for that building we were talking about to the south. Then it continues to slow down until it gets in front of the computer science building. Then we have to have a switchback ramp, unfortunately because there's just too much topographical change and we're also dealing with rainwater issues. Rain is currently getting into the existing computer science building right now. So we're trying to mitigate that as well. And then it continues, but then it also continues straight across to the west where the current ADA parking is on the west side of the building. The drop-off, there's two drop-offs on governor's drive. One is to the north, and that gets you within a hundred feet of the existing building entrance and also the north entry. And then we also have a drop-off that is at the end of this service drive that you can come down this walkway to get to the front entry. If needed, somebody could pull down this road to drop someone off, but then you'd have to make a three-point turn and you get down to the end of the loading dock. So the intent here is that this is more of a pedestrian path than just reloading them for the drop-off. One drop-off is to the north of the building on the east side, and one drop-off is on the west side of the building. One drop-off is on the north and one drop-off is on the east. And then there's two ADA parking spaces on the west. Okay. Can I ask you a question? Is the drop-off to the north, the accessible routes from there to the existing computer building, is that those routes or those already? Yeah, we're regrading the entire site, including that north part to become accessible. Okay, thanks. There's also a parking lot across a cross-governor's drive and there's an accessible route from the parking lot down to that north entrance as well. As long as they don't go further south. Well, they can, yeah. Okay. Yeah, so there's an accessible to the building, but if you want to get elsewhere on campus, that's a little... Okay. All right. Okay. That's a little odd. Yeah. I mean, I'm just thinking about it from the perspective of a student who has a class and needs to get to another class and they have to wait for the van and they're gonna be late because they can't do it themselves. And the van isn't gonna be on time. Also a question, you know, accessible entrances like they should really be accessible entrants on that end. I'm sorry, Cody. I'm having a little trouble understanding you. I have... I think he wants to know if there's an accessible entrance and accessible entrance to the bus stop, which I guess is on the, on governor's drive. Cody, is that what you're saying it is? There's an accessible entrance to the bus stop, which I guess is on the, on governor's drive. Cody, is that what you're saying it is? There's two bus stops. Okay. Where are they? So there's, I believe Bert, correct me if I'm wrong. There's one up here that's like just at the edge of the page on the West, is that right? That is correct. There's the bus stops are kind of across from each other on governor's drive just to the West of the existing computer science building. And we're not proposing on relocating those mostly because of grading issues on governor's drive to try to create that much flat space. You know, we can get enough flat space in front of the building for the special transportation van, but not for a full, you know, 60 foot PVTA bus. So the answer to his question is you cannot get out of the building and go to a bus. I mean, actually you can, you can. So you can get out of the building and use the sidewalk and head directly to the West instead of going up to governor's drive and then walk up the sidewalk to get to those bus stops. Yeah. And it's true that it's true that it's not there's not an accessible arrow here in that that may be an oversight because I believe that that part of the existing sidewalk is most likely all accessible. It's really flat at that end. Yeah. It's pretty flat there. Actually, Carolyn, where you've been running your hand up and down, it's really the, along governor's drive that portion of governor's drive is actually fairly flat. This course. Right through there. Yeah. Is there an exit of the building right toward where he's talking about? This green dot. Yeah. So there's all everywhere you see a green dot is an accessible entrance. Okay. I don't see any green dots. Sorry. So what I want to know is if there are, there are two accessible entrances, one from the new building and one from the existing building that are on the side of the building nearest to the bus stops. Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. Sorry if I talk over anybody, I'm recovering from an ear infection as well. So it's hard for me to... Oh, I've been there recently. No fun. It's great. That's awesome. It's constant ringing in one side, stuffy on the other side. It's great. Haven't had one since I was five. So, all right. So does that answer everybody's questions about the... Well, I cannot see the accessible entrance to the building on the west side, governor's street side. Is there any way you can point it with your cursor? I'm looking for the... So there's two entrances. There is the bus stop is... On the west side, there is not an entrance to the building. There are things from... Well, there is a... There isn't. So that, you know, like a student that gets off the bus, which is on the west side, that's kind of between those wheelchair signs. And then they... To get into the building, they have to go up toward the... Toward north and then make a right and then get through the... Can you explain... So, actually, can you zoom in, please, Carolyn, as far as you can to the west side? Lanking out on me now. It's a little tricky, but... I'm having a lot of computer issues today, so I simplify this. That's why we need the computer science building. That's right. I just want to explain that, in fact, there is an accessible entrance at the west end of the building. It's right next to the loading dock on the building and it's raised up above grade by quite a bit with a standard wheelchair ramp that goes up. So you can see it there, you know, if you can behind the toasters that are sitting there. It's not a pretty entrance. It's really kind of a sad thing. And this is the existing building. That's in the existing building, but the existing building is connected directly to the new building through the corridor system on the building. So, you know, effectively, we do have, you know, accessibility from that end. And that's why the handicapped parking spaces are low-fitted there. So I'm trying to understand the student that gets off the bus. At the bus stop. That's not the bus stop. You're not looking at the bus stop. You know, you have to turn that thing around. You're looking at the place where the van would drop off? There are the bus stops. The bus stop is on Governor's Drive itself. OK, so the person using a wheelchair use the accessible bus rather than waiting for to schedule with the van. So they get off it and they're going to heading toward the computer center. So can you, is there any way you can show where they will walk? Why don't you turn that image around and we can walk straight up to it? OK. So let's turn around. Yeah, that's the bus. You keep going down Governor's Drive. OK. So the entrance with the ramp is here. And then there's another entrance up here, which is going to be reconfigured. But this is the existing building and pathways that go up there that are going to be that's actually not quite accessible now, but it will be when we are done with it. Can I interrupt and just ask to make a request? I'm legally blind and I'm trying to follow your cursor or your hand, whatever that is. And it's flying all I'm sorry. I'm sorry when you point to something, can you leave it there for a couple of seconds? Yes, and I apologize so much. Yeah, so this is the sidewalk. I see Governor's Drive. Right now, there's a sloped sidewalk that goes up to the north entrance of the existing building. I see better. And that all of this grading is going to be adjusted with the new project so that this is meets accessible slopes. So there is no lift or anything. They'll just go straight through the door. No lift and no need for railings in this area either. And this is the this is the old existing building. That's correct. Yes. The new building will be up here to the east. And this is a bit of a hillock that is going to be reconfigured so that there's an accessible path to the lower level of the building on the north side. That's what's on top of the grass area now. Right. So will there be another bus stop there? There will not be another bus stop in part because there's this curve here in Governor's Drive. Oh, dangerous. That's very dangerous to have a bus that you would need to pass on that curve. Can I get back to Cody's question? Cody's question, the follow up to Cody's question is how far from the PBTA bus stop is it to get into an accessible entrance to what would be the old building? I'm sure. I don't know. We've been concentrating on the van drop. I'm sure that's within 100 feet. I don't know if Bert has that answer handy. I don't have that answer handy. I can say it doesn't change. And that does get you into the new building once you're in the doors of the existing building. I can measure it. We can measure it. Yeah, I'm just interested because all of us know about scheduling van service. And van service doesn't come when you ask for it. You often have to wait up to a half an hour for it. And if you are trying to run to another class or get to another class in a reasonable amount of time, you might be better off on a bus. Yeah, Myra, the distance is approximately 250 feet from the existing bus stop to the entrance that is ramped on the west side of the existing building. And it's probably another 50 or 60 feet to the north entrance of the existing building. However, if they go to the new building, then it's another story. So to reach to the new building. Well, you wouldn't go in that way. Yeah, so you'll go through. You'll get inside the old building and then you'd cross over to the new building. Into the new building, yeah. And it's on the same level, Sarah. Right, right. Did you make any covered walkways around this building? Or are they just all? They're not, OK, OK. OK, so we're at 4 o'clock. I don't have to be anywhere, but I just want to put that out there. I think this is a really valuable discussion. But I just want to let everybody know. I don't know if anybody has any time constraints. Please let me know if you do. Can we get to the variance request then, maybe? Yeah, let's get to the variance request. OK, so I'm going to, we'll send these around again. But I'll make sure that these are labeled very well and described very well so you know what you're looking at when we send them around again. OK, so I'm going to go. Right now what I've pulled up is an image of the first floor plan, and I'm actually going to zoom in a little bit to focus on the new building. So what we have here is we're showing the first floor with the entrance at the north. The paler color, if you can see that, is basically circulation open space. The pale yellow, yes. And then one of the things that's a little deceiving about this is what we're trying to color in is the programmed area. So there's also a big orange space in the middle that's open to that pale yellow space. It's a bit what we're calling the commons. So this is the undergraduate commons. This is the main gathering place for the students. And the theme here is to study alone together because these are computer science students and they don't gather in large groups apparently. So instead of having big tables for people to work at, we're populating with small tables and individual seating and whatever that kind of furnishing. On what you can also see, so you come in. And if you're coming in from the north and you look to your left, this orange area is the colloquium. This is a large gathering space for presentations and poster sessions where that's a flat floor space. Next to the blue thing? No, it's up at the top of the page. So the blue. Your cursor is like flying, so I can't follow it. You know what, let me see if I can. It's just that it bounces and I don't know what you're pointing to. It could be the, because the images are too. I'll just keep it still. At the top of the page, that orange at the very top, that's the colloquium. Okay, got it. It looks like it has squares. It's a wide open space. It's a wide open space. There is a dashed line that goes through it. That's a movable wall so they can divide it in half and have it on one side and talking on the other side or whatever. And it's flat floor. This isn't anything that you're gonna ask about because you don't think about this, but what is the flooring like in this wide open space? So we do think about acoustics. The wide open space we have right now because of so much traffic. And we actually just had a discussion about this earlier today is polished concrete. And then we have acoustic treatments on the walls. And I actually do wanna talk a little bit about acoustics when we're walking through this space and because we're trying to break up the space a little bit. And I know that especially for people who might be blind or have vision issues that that's something that's helpful. So I'd like to get a little bit of feedback to think about acoustics in this space. Caroline, Caroline, if I may add, generally speaking, the floor finishes here are all smooth floor finishes, either polished concrete or a very, very, very low nap carpet like you find in the airport concourses that you can roll over and don't catch your feet too much if you have trouble lifting feet. A low pile commercial. Okay, very low pile. So here's my question. And it's a question for people with visual impairments and people who are blind. If everything on the floor is the same color, it's very difficult to find your way or to look towards something different. So you need to have some contrast in the color of the floor. It might be that if you have a pathway that you're trying to demarcate that that would be a different color than the surrounding carpet or the surrounding floor so that you can say, okay, I'm supposed to stay on the green or I'm supposed to stay on the red or I'm supposed, if I wanna get anywhere, a blind person cannot get feedback from that. We need texture difference. So either we're supposed to stay on the carpet or we're supposed to stay off the carpet or we're supposed to stay off a textured concrete. But if we learn, we're supposed to stay on the smooth concrete and we can run a cane along the side of the texture and know where it is or along the side of the carpet and know where it is, then we're gonna know where we are. Wide open spaces are the worst thing in the world for blind people and the second worst thing in the world for visually impaired people. Cause I used to be one of them. I used to be one of them, but you need color contrast in your flooring and in your walls, if all your walls are the same color, Elise is gonna go, oh God, which way am I facing? There aren't any windows. I need to go toward the red wall. I need to go toward the blue wall. I need to go toward the stripe wall, but I can't know where I'm going if all the walls are green. Yeah, she described it just right. Okay, great. And that's good because we're trying to put in accent walls. Like this is the, you know, and strategically decide which walls are gonna be like the accents. So that's helpful. One thing, this space, it's not fully... So this is an open space in the middle, but there's actually a below a story. So the colonnade, like it's kind of the way that you walk around underneath. So it'll be, so there's windows on one side, there's skylights above, there will be a light difference, but we haven't really factored in a texture difference for all of that yet. So we can definitely look at that for that navigation because this big blue space that's at the bottom of the page, that's the auditorium. So people are gonna need to be able to come in. Can I ask one more question? You just mentioned a lower part of that space and an upper, is there a step down? No, I just meant that the ceiling is lower. Oh, okay, gotcha. The ceiling is lower, yeah. So the ceiling will be right. So I have some, I... So when you're standing, when you come in the door, you're standing underneath the floor above and then to your right and left, there's kind of corridors, this is a mass timber building, so there's big columns we're trying to show off and that there's ceiling above you walking towards the auditorium or walking back towards the elevator and then as you step forward into the space, that's when it becomes a multi-story space. Okay, so there's no level change, really. There's no level change in the commons itself, correct. Is there a change in ceiling height? I'm sorry, say that again, Mara. Is there a change in ceiling height that has to do with your acoustics? So if you're going by the elevator, the ceiling is lower. So if you go to a place where you can hear that there's a lower ceiling, you're going to be going toward the elevator and when you're going away from that, you're going to be going toward a way to get to the auditorium or not. So, Mara, there's a... It's hard to see no matter how well you can see on this plan, but basically around the outside of this space is a lower ceiling. Do you have the second floor? I have the second floor. I also have rendering the space. I don't know if those will be easier for people to see. Okay. So people can see in the middle part, you can see down to the bottom, to the auditorium. So if you can see this one, the white piece in the middle is an opening in floors two, three and four. It's a donut, essentially. Yep. And so when you're on the very lower level between the colloquium space and the auditorium, you'd be under a walkway above. If you were in the middle of the space, you would be under a four-story high space. So if you were to stay towards the edges, you'd be under a, what's it called? A 10-foot ceiling. If you were to stray into the middle, you'd be under a four-story ceiling, if that makes sense. Okay. And allow me just to appreciate that you can understand that there's a ceiling above you when it's there and I cannot, I just... Well, it depends how high it is. Yeah, but it doesn't depend how high it is for me. I just don't hear it. If it's 10 feet, you can hear it. If the difference is 10 feet to 16 feet, depends. Yeah, that's right. But no, I just... And how much attention you can pay depending on the rest of the noise. Yeah. But 10 feet to 60 feet, and you can definitely sense the difference. Yeah, 60 feet, there's nothing above you. Yeah. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. And I think I'm just gonna take a moment to point this out. I'm going back to the first floor plan. So you walk on either side. Dan talked about this donut. In the middle of this donut is this big stair that we were talking about. That's the community stair. On the south end of that, which is also colored orange in this plan, that's an undergraduate pantry and quiet study. So that space is all one story. And the idea is that that backspace is the more quiet acoustically space. It's a quiet space for students to study. So what we're trying to accomplish here is to help students with lots of neurodiversity so that if you're somebody like me who can't sit in a library because you get distracted by every single noise, you're gonna wanna sit in the middle of the floor with everybody going around because that kind of muffles all the individual pieces. But if you're somebody who needs real quiet, we've got a room with a door that you can study in. And then kind of all the kinds of spaces in between. So we've got varying height, varying furniture, open closed, a number of students that can fit into conference rooms or huddle spaces. And so that's the idea through this building and the commons. And that means that the spaces themselves have different qualities just because of the amount of light and air and sound that's gonna be in the space because we vary the sizes of those spaces. If that makes sense. Okay, so it sounds like, I mean, I know you wanna talk about the stair and I wanna hear about that, but it sounds like you're going to have a opportunity for a lot of noise pollution. In this one. There's an opportunity for a lot of noise pollution in the middle of the commons. Yeah. For people who can't function by finding their way with a lot of noise pollution, there has to be really clear textural changes on the floor because there isn't any other way to get your information. May I ask a question about that, Myra? Yeah. Let me first preface it by explaining what the floor of that commons is, how it's constructed. We have a concrete structural slab that sits on the ground. Then there's a layer of insulation and then there's some more concrete on top of that that is exposed to the space and which has inside of it radiant heating and cooling tubing. And so that top slab is polished and to a certain degree, not to say that it's slick, but that will have a certain number of saw cuts in it, we'll call them cuts that control the cracking of the slab. As in expansion joints? As in, yeah, we use a slightly different term, but yes, as in expansion joints, the construction of the pieces of the concrete going together and we're patterning that in order to have them close enough together to control the slab. But I was curious when you were describing that to see if that kind of, you know, it's like... How far apart are they? Well, that's what we haven't determined yet, but I was wondering if that might be a device that we could use in order to... You could use it in your artistic design. I would say you could use it in the artistic design of the texture of the floor. If they're going to be six or seven feet apart, it's not so helpful. Yeah, how close do they need to be to be helpful or is it, in other words, they could also change direction too, right? So what could be helpful? It depends on the way they go. Like if I knew I had to stay between two expansion joints and they were, you know, I would learn it if I were a student there, but if they were six, seven feet apart and I knew that I was going parallel to the expansion joints, I'm all set. If I have to go across the expansion joints, I'm not all set, except that I would find out if I had veered because my feet wouldn't be parallel or perpendicular to an expansion joint. I mean, if they're that detectable to you, it's possible, you know, that we have a double line or something like that that defines the pathway, which it sounds like it would be a bright line for you that many people would never notice, but it would be helpful for you to get from point A to point B. We learn how to trail cracks. We learn how to do all kinds of ridiculous things. Yeah, most people wouldn't notice. But I think, yeah, I mean, but if the cracks were something that if I knew I had gone over one, I would be, oops, I'm out of line. If I have to cross them, it would be good if I had some other ones that go, I don't know. I was thinking that the edges of the path could be double and then the others would be every six feet or something and the double would be, we've got an edge for you. If they were double, like six inches apart or three inches apart. Yeah. We have columns that are two feet, right? And everything else might be six feet or something or we could do something else there. It's a really tricky thing. I think, I mean, this is part of your finishes, right? This is in construction doc, not really in, this is really in design. Yes, it is in construction because you have to. We're just about to provide construction documents. Yeah. So this is, I just, I want to get to the real thing, but this is why you cannot come to a disability committee at 75 or 90%. You have to come earlier because everybody on this committee has said stuff that I'm sure you didn't think about. Yeah. And it has to be built in from the beginning. So that's why, you know, we need to be in on projects from 25, 50% on construction documents. I appreciate that. And certainly don't argue that. I will say that this is valuable stuff that we're just now really ready. In other words, we haven't even drawn those joints yet. So this is actually perfect timing for that particular feedback. I'm not the expert, but there are people who are, that I would recommend that you show the picture to, but that's, you know, I'm not the expert. I'm not the expert. I can come back and come later. Let's go to the stairway. Okay. Great. All right. Let's, I'm going to jump down. So we can talk about the stair. Excuse me for a second. Okay. All right. So this is. I've gone. What I've pulled up is a zoomed in image of the stair. What we have is a. It's a two-feet wide that is divided in two parts. That's four, six and two, six. The idea of being the wider part. If you just want, if people want to just walk up and down. And the skinnier part, the rail that divides the skinnier part is adjacent to. A seating type stair. We've included. Built in benches. So if it's there, these are each three steps deep. And there is. A two-feet wide. Seating. For someone in a wheelchair, there's room at the top and the bottom. Of the stair to be with your friend. I want to show, I want to go through this real quick. So I can, because I know there were some concerns. I'm going to show the plan and I'm going to show a couple of images. And then we can kind of talk about it. Talk through it. Where's the stair. I'm having trouble picturing this whole thing. And really making sense. Me too. I don't know how much page might show it better. Okay. It'll load. There we go. This is a 3d image from. Oh my goodness. And then you're going to, I'm going. Hold on. The next one's loading. All right. We're at the bottom of the stair where you've walked into the building. You've walked into. The comments you've just walked out from underneath that donut that Dan was talking about. They're looking straight ahead. And then we're going to go to the second floor. So this is a connecting stair. So this is a connecting stair from the first floor that goes up to the second floor to go to the out the exit, the second floor. It's where everybody's. Yeah. Okay. To the left of the image. There's, you'll see a white wall. That quarter on the other side of the. Column line. Is go straight down that goes back to the elevator and to that quieter commons area. So that goes back to the. Or the right side of the stair. That goes back around that is goes back around to the auditorium. The building is divided into halves. And we've stayed with this kind of theme throughout. On your left side is the bar. Everything is straight. It's wood. We really accentuated that. To the. To your right is glass. This is the crystal. And so this is how this. So when you're navigating through the building, you kind of know what side of the building that you're on. Oh. Which is the wood? The oldest wood and the newest glass and metal? No, this is all new. This is the new building, right? This is the new building. We're only talking about the new building right now. Yep. So you walk into the new building from the north. And you come to this four-story space. And so it's this open undergraduate commons with all of this free-floating seating. And then you walk forward to this larger stair that is seven feet wide with a continuous rail on one side. And a railing on that's not centered on the stair, but it's four and a half feet from the other side. But it has a break in the middle because there's a landing so that you can get in and out from the seating area on the commons stair. Wow, that makes sense. Hold on, I'm going to zoom in a little bit more. Remember what you saw on the student center, Sarah, and it's the same thing. Oh, I see. So there's like a, what are those? And somebody's sitting on it. They're like benches. They're benches. They're built-in benches. So what it is is every three steps, there's a built-in bench that kind of takes up some part of the reason. So the students, like I see, I enlarge my vision here. There's somebody with a red sweater carrying a bag. And when she goes up a couple of steps, then she can move to the bench. Why do you have benches there? I cannot understand. So there's a couple of reasons. One is we're trying to get in as much seating as we can in this space for students to hang out and power without having power in the floor. So we only have, we have power around the perimeter, and this is one of our solutions to power in the middle. And we also have program area underneath this. So we're trying to provide this, you know, moment that is more casual for the students to be able to sit and study or wait for class or something like that. However, if I am a student using a wheelchair, there is no way I can utilize those, right? If you're a student using the wheelchair, then you can pull in at the base or pull in at the top, but it's just for ambulatory people. There are approximately 100 seats of different configuration to be finalized, but about 100 seats on the lower level. There are also some seating around at the top level. And one thing to underscore that this is not, this is not as wide as the student union, and it's also not designed as a presentation. We talked to the college faculty and dean extensively and they're adjacent. There's the auditorium and the colloquium space. So this is really not meant to be, say, a presentation space where it's an intentional gathering space on those stairs. It's a hangout. It's a hangout. It's another option, much like the seating that you see in the foreground here that you would see if you went around the stairs to a quieter space that's an undergraduate Commons. There's a cafe seating up on level two at the top of this that's fully accessible. So it's just one of many, many places that are part of a greater community space. And this is then at the top and there's cafe seating just off the screen. And at the edge of the, there's touchdown space at the edge and one of the things that we've been really conscious of with we have a few of these touchdown spaces around workbars around the building. I'm just going to show, I don't know if my if it's changing sheet or not I'm not going to click. The images are really, really big. We're trying for universal access as much as we can so there's no halves and halves not so for example this one is at 34 inches so this is a space where anybody can pull up sit stand, whatever talk participate in the conversation this is up on the third floor one story above. And you know we have these kind of similar moments around the building. And the same with the, the one to the side. Oh, one too many. So that's kind of what the idea is that we have all these kinds of informal spaces to be. And the variance request, the specific variance request I'm trying to find an image that kind of shows it is the break in the family. There is no rule right now about community stairs. We understand that that might be changing, but that's a good question. Sure. I see that it's a lease I see that at the top of the stairs. When you're coming down is there a real so I'm trying to see one side of the staircase does not have a railing. So here you can kind of see it in this overhead image which is a little disorienting where where no I can't. Okay, all right. All right, I'll try again. Yeah. Okay, so the rail on one side of the wider stairs is a for the total stairs seven feet wide. So when you're going up the stairs, you have to hold on to the right railing. You can help you can go if you're going. So there's two rails. Yeah, I see that but so, but they're on the okay so there's one you can go up on them and hold between the two right. Yeah, please. And then, yeah, but then when you're coming down. You, there's only one railing going down. No, the idea is that Dan marked it out. So the idea is that if you're just going up and down you go between the two rails. So when I'm sorry, bear with me because I'm not, I don't visualize space very well. Yeah. So when you're going down, let's say you're at the top of the stairs. Yeah, there's no left there's no left railing there's only one I mean there's no right railing there's only one. This is the top. Can you see the orange dot on my screen. That's the top. That's the top. And then you come down. This way. Yeah. Yeah. On your right hand side, there's a continuous handrail. Okay, so there is one on the right coming down. Yeah. Okay. Down to the bottom. Oh, and there's a break on the other side. And there's a landing. Okay. Is like this. Okay. Yeah. If you're coming up from the bottom, the open circle. There's a red railing on your right, but there's a short gap of. Okay. About three feet that there's not a railing. And then it picks up again and brings you up to the top. Okay. And what is the reason for that break in the railing. You are going up or down and we're to choose to sit. Say on a bench. Here. Right. That allows you to come through. Okay. So if you want to go to a bench. Maybe like three, four steps down. How would you go there? So you mean three, three or four steps down from the top. You want to go to the third, a second bench. Say, yeah, that one. How would you come? Yeah. If you're coming down, you could. At that point choose to come here. That's right. That's right. So. If people think that they're going to sit in the benches. So could they take that narrow stares with only one railing on the left side? Because they are ambulatory people. So if you. You're asking if we made this continuous. Yes. And what that would do is it would make. The. It would make, if you were coming up the stairs, let's say you go up and the railings on your right-hand side. You would be able to have a continuous railing. And you just wouldn't be able to cut across at that place without going to the top or bottom. Unless you go under the railing, of course. Or you go under the railing. I suppose you could do that. That's right. Which we've never seen a student do. Ever. Yeah. I can't do that maneuver anymore. So there's no really interesting point. She's bringing up the railing. So if you're, if you're intending to sit, you could use the narrow part. And if you're intending to go up or down safely. You would use the wide part. And you could hold on on either side. Cause what I'm nervous about this is precisely the same thing. That happened in the student center. Where they made that railing on the left side. And they didn't put anything in the middle so that people are going to be going both ways against the railing. On the continuous railing. So this is exactly the same thing because you can't tell, you know, people are supposed to walk on the right. And most people do, but some people don't. And so like you said, way earlier are looking at their phones. Yeah. And so I see this Saren's suggestion actually makes a lot of sense because it makes that stairway at least safer for people going up and down. If you want to sit, you don't go on the wide part. If you want to follow the. Yeah. That means. That means you don't have any. Disabling issues. Like for example, somebody like me, who is the wheelchair, I cannot use that period. You know, I can always sit at the very bottom. If my friend is sitting on the first bench, I can either, we can either sit on the first one or the very top one. So then if it is another ambulatory person. Then they can easily take the narrow stairs with a railing on one side. So they're not, you know, if they're visually impaired, like you would know is you, the bench you would use is safely would be the one on the, at the bottom or at the top. Right. Or I would take the railing and I would know, I have to go four steps down and then I'm going to sit there and meet my friends. But if it's the other way, it would be not safe. No, that's making the continuous. That's a really interesting. You might have to make. This is another thing with a stairway is to narrow. With, I don't know if you can make it wider. You probably can't. But the stairway at seven feet is too narrow to really achieve. The kind of safe passages. That we have in mind, but I don't know where you'd put that middle rail. I don't know where the, if you would move it slightly. Into the wide part so that there was a little more room on the narrow part. If it was going to be continuous, but I think that's. An interesting question. For people. For traffic flow, because kids are going to be running up and down. Because I think we have a little bit of flexibility in this with. So what would you, what in your mind? I mean, obviously we have to study this would be comfortable, safe with. I don't know, but I'm thinking about, I have a little entrance to my house. It's five feet wide. And yours is less. And if I had to have kids running up and down through my little phone, five feet wide, that would be not a lot. You know, even if it was, I was thinking in the other project, nine feet. And I think that's what the gentleman from the state said as well. Nine feet would be, would make it. You would have. You know, three and a half and five and a half or three and six or. Something. But it seems to me that there needs to be a solid rail. On both sides. Yeah. Just because people can, they can know that they're on the very edge. And then that there isn't going to be anybody who's going to knock them over. Cause they're running down the steps. Just to a question to do benches. Like if comfortably, how many people can be able to sit on the bench? Yeah. So my, my, what I'm trying to get it, if it is comfortable for five seat, five people to sit next to each other, we can, you can easily look into narrowing it and make it downsizing to four people sitting comfortably. There you go. We can, we can see if there's any reason not to sit on these benches. Yeah. I don't think it's going to be comfortable. We can see if there's any reason not to make the stair nine feet. I think I, nothing comes to mind right now, but let us take that under advisement. If that would be okay. Okay. That's really good. I love her idea. And because it keeps it safe for everybody. No, it's great. But can I, can I just ask something and, and forgive my naivete. but if I'm down at the bottom where that open circle is, and I come up, I'm using the, we'll call it the middle rail, even though there's only two, I'm using the rail at the bottom, I'm using my right hand. Let's just say we get past this landing. At the very top of this location, is this space not analogous to the landing in the sense that you're taking a couple of steps from one railing to the other, but it's a perfectly flat space. And I'd just like to hear you talk about that because- Wait, wait, if you're at the top, what? Okay, so I guess what I'm just asking for- Yeah, I understand what you're talking about. I'm saying that the situation here, is analogous really to the situation here, which is you get to a flat space. However, however, with the one in the middle, there are more steps. It is not like at the top is totally, you are at the next level, which is totally flat. This flatness here is limited to all, maybe two or three steps wide. So somebody with visual impairment might be confused. Where am I? Am I at the top of the steps or- Also somebody who needs to hold on to a rail to go up. I mean, you might not be visually impaired. You might be injured. Right, but my point is that from that perspective, when you get to the top, there's no railing. And when you get to the landing, do you see what I'm saying? In other words, and the railings continue such that there's really only a little over, it's like two and a half feet in between. That's a lot of feet. Okay. When you're at the top, you know you're at the top. Okay. When you're at the middle, you don't want to be at the top, in the middle. I can't argue with the fact that when you're at the top, you're at the top. Yeah. But when you're at the top, you know you're at the top. Yeah, you're in the same place. Yeah, you got to the top. That's right. And yeah, I love her idea. Because people can still have that seating. That's right. It can still be social for everybody. That's right. And people who can't do the steps can sit at the top or at the bottom. And people who can can do it and it won't interfere with traffic flow, which I think could be pretty dangerous if you have a lot of people running to class, running to food, seeing their friend at the top, yelling to their friend at the bottom, not watching where they're going. You know, it is possible that people don't watch where they're going when they're 18 years old. Oh, please don't. Myra, I have one question to ask you and Elise. Like when you're going up the steps and you have railing on both sides, when you're going up, do you have to hold onto both sides? No. Of the railing? No. No. Oh, so you either use the right side or the left because probably it's... You wouldn't even hold it for support. You would just trail it with your hand. You're just like telling you where you are. Yeah, yeah. I say, I say. So I think maybe you can look into enlarging the steps and shrinking the benches. I think, yeah. Well, I think that's definitely worth pursuing as a design direction. So we appreciate that feedback. Oh, I wish we had thought about that one for the... Well, the student center, they didn't care. They built it all already. It was... But yeah, that's a great idea. Okay. Yeah. So we're at 4.43. I don't know if anybody can still read the code. Is the auditorium... Did everybody look at the auditorium picture? No. Yes. We'll look at the auditorium for a moment. I don't see any problem with that. I don't see any problem with that. Except Cody brought up the other day, perhaps that there might be more than four places for wheelchairs. I don't know if there is a formulaic way that you came up with four, or if you could put... Serious, but before that, at least you had your hand raised. Did you have a comment on that? Yeah, I did. I'm sorry, I just... I never know with Zoom how to quite get in and out. So I just want to clarify for myself, those two red lines are the railing. Yes, they were the railing. Okay, so there is a way going up to hold onto a railing on the right. Yes. There is. I'm asking because... When I say yes confidently, there is. It means in that top section, there is a railing. But going up, the reason I'm asking is because I use a guide dog and my guide dog is on my left and the only railing option I have is on my right. Got it, yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to clarify for myself. So if you're just using the stairs, then that is true. If you will want to go into the seating area from below, there would not be one to your right because if there was, you wouldn't be able to get to the seats. So, which is to say you and your guide dog would come up in this area. I can't even see your pointer again. Really? This area here. Which area? I'm sorry, I can't see what you're pointing to. Is that an orange circle? It's close to the right railing. Keep... drew a... Yeah, see the line? Yeah. I don't see the cursor, but I'll take a look for it. Well, I... I just wouldn't use the benches. Okay. So what was this little marking for? It was to say that that's the zone where if you were going up with a guide dog on your left and you want a rail on your right, you would be going on the top side of the bottom red line. I see. Yeah, yeah. But you might be able to... When you go down the staircase, Elise, do you always hold on to the rail when you have your dog? Oh, yeah. You always do. Yeah, my balance is not great. So the red squiggle going up, that's what you're... That would be you, yeah. That would be your dog. And I don't mean to offend you. I don't mean to offend you. Yeah. No, no, no. This is what I need. I need the color contrast. Which is why I'm asking about it. This is great. Yeah, I like this idea. So you don't have to ask for variance for this. All fixed. Thank you for your patience. Yeah, so I guess that would be an interesting question because if you're going to do it, then we don't need to deny to say we don't want to approve. We don't have any rights. Okay, we are advisory. We can write a letter to the AAB and tell them we don't like it and they can say tough news and they'll let you do it anyway. So we know that. But we can tell them why we don't like it. So that's an interesting... So I don't know how you intend to see where, but we would need to know. If we put that continuing... If we make that railing continuous, then there's no variance. Correct. That's what we're talking about. What I would like to do is tell you that we would like to study this and see if there's something that we're not thinking of in terms of why we can or can't make this wider. I think making the rail continuous, Bert, I don't see any reason that we couldn't do this in preference for this. I think that's a dead simple yes. We can make the railing continuous. I think that I'm not sure. I mean, Ted is, I don't know if Ted Dow is still available, but I was under the impression that part of the issue is that for the two and a half foot wide piece or whatever width it becomes, that you still need to have railings on both sides and that puts the railings right on your... I think you're right. I don't know, Ted and Jennifer were on, was on too. I think we probably still need the variance for that. Yes. We're on the right side for the seats. Closes to the benches, correct. Between the stair and the benches. Right. Okay, well... That of course makes the benches impossible to get to. Yeah, no, no, no, we wouldn't want. I wouldn't want a railing blocking off the benches. That seems ridiculous. No, yeah. Just like it would be downstairs too. And that is ridiculous, but there is... I think she came up with a happy medium so that if the stairway were wider, if everybody could get to benches without... If you don't need a railing, if you need a railing, you're gonna use a railing. And if you don't need a railing, you can use the benches. You can use one side and use the benches. But the other way, you don't provide a railing at all for people going the other direction. So it's a problem. Yeah, I guess... Yeah, we can write it. I guess I'll write it. And I can write it in a way that for us, that we really do want... That we would... That if you have to have... If you have two railings, then there doesn't need to be continuous railing between the benches and the railing because you weren't gonna have them anyway. Right. You never tend to have railings on the benches. That's right. And that's the same issue here. Yeah. So I've pulled up the auditorium plans. So the top of the page is North. Again, this is back on the first floor, back behind those stairs. You come into the North and you walk into the space, kind of walk... You know, there's like a wall in front of you to kind of break up the acoustically. So you walk around that wall to either side and then you choose where you're gonna go to sit. What we have is we've adjusted the slope of the depth of the whole space. So there is a three-foot difference between where you walk in and then it goes down three feet to the front of the room. There is no stage at the front of the room. It's flat. And we have a little line here. That's just a graphic line. So you can ignore that. And this is also a graphic line. So there's seats and there's a sloped aisle between those seats and no railings. So it's one in 12. So the variance is to eliminate the rails, but it's only four feet wide. So you can touch the seats to kind of go down and it's a low slope. So there's no steps. There is a accessible ramp on one side of the auditorium. So that if you do need an accessible route, you can go that way. And we have some more visualization of that here. I think I forgot we had it a little zoomed in here. So here's that way in. We also have, we don't have enough room for two ramps. So what we have is a ramp on one side and a lift on the other side so that you have two accessible routes in. Oh, where's the lift? The lift is on the, as you come on the page, it's to the east, it's on the right side. So that brings you to the front. So if you go down in the lift, it brings you down directly to the front of the room. And there's stairs there too, so that if, so that people can go out that way. So you get out of the elevator, you're across the back of the auditorium, you take the lift down to the bottom. No, you go, you're in the commons, you walk next to the auditorium, like you're in the common space and you just go through a door directly to the lift, take the lift down and then you're on the... On the other side, okay. And there's a wall there, so it's not, it's not open to the auditorium either too, so that if there's anybody who comes to use it and something's already happening in there, the noise of using it will hopefully not be super distracting. But you shouldn't, but there's always the option to come in at the same level and use the ramp on the side as well. And then, so I think the question was whether there's enough spots. So yeah, we do use a calculation to come up with a number of handicap seats and companion seats. And I don't know if Ted or Jennifer wants to talk about that at all. But they helped us figure out the number, so that's how we got to the floor. Yeah, Caroline, hi, this is Jennifer. Yeah, so that's just based on the accessible seating tables in 521 CMR as well as the ADA. Okay, I have a question. You're 36 feet ramp. Is it from the bottom to the front of the back seat or to the back of the back seat? The ramp goes from the back of the auditorium and then goes down to the front of the room. Well, when you're counting your 36 feet, are you counting from the front of the back seat or to the back of the back seat? It's to the back of the front seat. So the front row is on the flat. The front, yeah, but I'm just asking about the 36 foot ramp because, so you have calculated it so that it is exactly one in 12. Yeah, so it doesn't matter if it's to the front of the back, but you have figured in the space of the seat in the way you've figured it. Correct. Would you have railing on the ramp? It's only four feet wide. The railing in the middle that you'd only have to put on the other side. So on the ramp, which is on the left-hand side, that has railings on both sides. Yeah, it's a fully accessible ramp with railings on both sides. So take a look. So that's a better image. Oh, they do. Okay, they do have a ramp on both sides. So this is what it looks like from the back. This is wonderful. I like this image better. You like these renderings? This quality is better. Okay, I do because I get a better sense because the other things are just too busy. Yeah. So the variance you want is to not have a railing inside on the aisles between the sections of seating. Correct. And it seems ridiculous. The only way you could have one, and it would cost you a lot of seats, is a center railing down the middle so you could hold on one way. But that would cost you a lot of seats. So, I mean, because people can get in a different way, I mean, it seems logical. I mean, and it is a one in 12 anyway. Yep. I have a question to ask. From my experience of going to see some plays or music at the Amherst College, they have an auditorium. It's all steps. It's all steps. It's terrible for you. Oh, are you talking about the mullet? No. At the back, they have a ramp kind of. I haven't been there for several years, but at the back behind the seat, there's quite a bit of flat area. So in this diagram, there are only two wheelchair accessible seats. But if there are more people sitting there, it seems like from this picture, it feels like there's room for them to just sit there in their wheelchair, in the space. It's true, Seren. One thing is that because it becomes flat behind the view angles won't be as good if you sit behind. You can certainly, it won't be the worst, but it won't be the best either. Right, but you can just put where the arrows is. Yeah, you put it. Just behind that. So there'll be a little bit more better seat. That's true. In fact, maybe even better view angles would be to put seating in front of the front row, in some cases because you'd be looking up at the screens, as opposed to trying to look over somebody's head. That's true. So that's always a possibility. Is there a way you can indicate that? I don't even know how you do that. With signage or with something? I don't know if we're at capacity. So this is a conversation that is an informal conversation or not. If that makes sense. I'm not sure where we are with a number of people. I mean, I think there's egress capacity, but I mean, the point is I don't think unless it proved that the four seats weren't enough and it's certainly, it's exceeding what is required by mass access, it's something that can be done. There's nothing restricting that. Yeah, if it turns out that we need additional wheelchair seating, we could easily, you know, cut down on the number of companion seats in the back or something like that, but we'd have to be working with the actual users to find out what makes the most of that. We have some removable seating that matches the other seating in the way it looks, but it would be removable. Yeah. But please don't put the seats that you're thinking of on the sides because I always miss the middle of the screen. What is happening there? So, in other words, we could take out two rows at the end of the central aisle, a central aisle in the front, something like that. Yeah. Okay, okay. So for our purposes, and I guess it's my, because I have to write it, could you send an email that says variance X number, you know, number 3574, you know, is requesting blah, blah, blah, and the other one is requesting blah, blah, blah. So I know how to write it in a way. I mean, we'll have to take a vote on these, but you know what I mean? I need to have the variance number. I need to have it really succinctly put down. So I know, I'll use your language, you know, and I'll say the committee voted X because. Okay. So that would be really helpful for me. We actually sent you a draft. I didn't submit it yet because I wanted to wait to have this conversation before I submitted it. So I don't have a variance number. Okay, I don't have any draft of any. The stuff that we sent you before was kind of just the draft of what we were thinking of. And then this, what I shared today is just a draft of what we were going to submit. So I have it because I wanted to wait and have this conversation. Okay, and then you, so you can fix that and then you'll send it to Pamela and then she can send it to me. Okay. You know, I missed the variance request for the auditorium. What was the request? The request is to not have a railing in those sloped aisles. Between the slides. You can't get to the seats. Between the sections of seating. Between the sections. Oh, I see, I see. Cause a huge traffic jam for one thing. Yeah. So I'm going to interrupt. And how can you do it anyhow? Can't really. Yeah. One railing per seat, per row you cannot. It will block people. Okay. So, Codi has his hand up and then I just want to add something after Codi speaks. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. I have to go. Codi, are you able to stay to vote or would you like to tell us in advance how you would vote on the variances? Like, is it okay with you to not have the rails in the auditorium? And is it okay with you to, for them to make it a larger staircase and have a non-continuous rail on the seating side, on the benches? I don't know how to put that. Both of those are okay with you the way Sarah described. Okay. Okay. Pamela, can we say he voted? Yes. Yes. We'll say that he voted. Yeah. Okay. That's what I think. Okay. I vote too. Okay. Thank you for all this extra time with us, Codi. Well, thank all of you for extra time. So. Hold on one second, Myra. Oh yeah. I'm sorry. I just wanted to say that included in the materials that I sent out to the group at the very beginning was the draft language of the variance that does include the two variance requests. It's a PDF form. So it's, I'm not so sure if it's successful on a reader, but we do have that language. Well, she said she wanted to change it. Okay. But I, she said she had another document that she had not sent to us yet because she wanted to know how to change it. Is that correct? Yeah, I mean, what I sent earlier was a draft of these images that I shared with you today and a draft of that variance request. I added a couple of things before we met today. So it's not what I said is not finalized. So I can update that and I'll send it to Bert and Pamela. You want me to send that to you directly? Pamela? Yeah. Yeah, you'll have to send it to me directly because I will need to send it out to the committee. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So thank you all. Committee hang out for one minute. Let's take a vote on these two requests. But I think, I don't know. For me, this was a really useful conversation. Sorry, it went way over time. We're not the easiest group to talk to because we have lots of ideas. And I appreciate it. You know what? We found it very valuable and gives us wonderful insight into the same spaces that we're designing but from a different perspective. So thank you for sharing your experience of the built environment. Well, thank you for listening to us patiently and answering our silly questions. So, but we want to know what is happening. Especially because this particular field, computer science, computer information systems, cybersecurity, all of these things are fields that people with a lot of disabilities can easily go in. So this is really critical for us in a way that certain other things might not be as critical because there will be a lot of participation of people with a variety of disabling conditions. And it's our state university, right, Myra? I'm sorry? And it is our state university. So we have to be the best. Well, this was a really great conversation. The feedback was really excellent. I really appreciate it. So if you wanna come to us again, I mean, I realize we have no power here, but if you wanna come to us again with the color schemes and with the, you know, texturizing of the floor and where the rug is and where the rug isn't, that would be really instructive for us and perhaps for you about wayfinding. Think about wayfinding with your feet. Terrific. And wayfinding with your feet and wayfinding with your eyes. If all the walls are the same color, that's not gonna be good wayfinding because Elise might be turned around in a different direction. If all the walls she's looking at are the same, she won't know where she's going. Yeah. Actually, one thing that I might find instructive is I would love to meet you on campus at some point and have you, you know, go into a space and have you explain to me a little bit more in a little bit of detail about what that experience is because it's different from mine. You must have a very tough campus. It's very tough to get around. It's really hard. It's a really tough campus. And so, you know, starting from, let's get the new things. That's why I was so upset about the Student Center because that should have come to us. If they had come up with Sarin's solution to that one, it would have been great, but they didn't make it wide enough. Gotcha. We'll see what we can do. Is there any way you can also address it that the entrance from the bus stop to the old building would be all leveled up because that probably, with the consideration of most of the students, are likely to use the bus rather than the lens. We can, easier access. We should look at that, because my gut is that it's accessible now, but we haven't measured it because it's not been sort of part of the project, but. Right. I can share. And here's the other crazy thing that isn't part of the project is that it snows up here sometimes and it don't topple sometimes. Yes. As much as you can get in a covered walkway, it makes it possible for people who use chairs and just other people anyway, but people who use chairs can't do anything with the ice and snow. But if there could ever be money budgeted to create more covered walkways. No, that would be wonderful. That would be so good for making things accessible. I mean, yeah, we're all crazy to live here and try to walk around. We should all go to school in Arizona. I understand that, but, you know. Yeah. Only good. Oh, God. Don't you? Yeah, she is. I would not be able to deal with it politically. So, yeah, great. Exactly. There's a reason we don't live here. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, thank you. We need two motions. We need one motion about the auditorium. Request for a variance to have no. No railings in the aisles between the sections. Yes, we need. We need that somebody move that. I'll move. You need a second. I second. And we need a vote. So, Ian. Yes. Saren. Yes. Elise. Yes. And we had Cody. Yes. And me. Yes. Then we need another motion. This one's a little trickier. For that central staircase, I don't know what they're going to call it, but it had to have to do with the number they're going to send me. That we, that with a continuous rail, we realize that the continuous rail will support two-way traffic on the wide stair and that we do not believe that they need to have a continuous rail on the seating side of the narrow stair. Isn't that, that's pretty much it. Okay. Okay. So you'll motion, you'll move that. And I need a second on that one. I do. Okay. So we need a vote. Saren. Yes. Elise. Yes. Ian. Yes. Me, yes. And Cody was a yes. So now we can have a motion to adjourn. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Pamela, specifically for hanging out much longer than you expected to. But I think we needed to have this conversation because I think they hadn't thought about a lot of stuff. So we need a motion to adjourn. I move. We need a second. Second. Okay. And we need everybody in favor of adjourning. Say yes. Yes. Everybody not in favor of adjournings. Say no. Well, it looks like we're adjourned. Thank you all. Okay. Bye-bye. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Pamela. All right. My pleasure. Derek, take care of me. Okay. Bye-bye. I'm glad I made this. Yeah, I am. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye.