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November 12, 1999
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Volume 7, Number 6 |
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GENERAL |
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Walkway not to open until after spring classes
By Wayne Eyre The Thorvaldson-Arts pedestrian link now under construction looks close to completion. But only when this winter’s cold and snow have long passed will the 50-m bridge be opened to campus foot traffic. U of S architect Colin Tennent says the structure itself will be finished early in the new year. "But we won’t be punching through the respective buildings – and hence interrupting classes and labs in Pharmacy and Nutrition – until after the academic year is over." The cost of the link – which will be supported by five greystone-clad and cut-limestone piers and which, like the Agriculture-Biology link, will have glass siding – is about $800,000. "That may seem like a lot," Tennent says. "But such structures involve intense engineering and the cost of this link is comparable to other ‘plus-15s’ (elevated pedestrian links) being built in Canadian cities these days." He says earlier plans for the link were to have it extend from Thorvaldson to a point immediately above the southeast entrance to the Arts Building. "But from both an aesthetic and economic point of view, it made more sense to run the link from the 1966 wing (of Thorvaldson) to north of the Arts Theatre." Tennent says the Thorvaldson-Arts bridge will be an important "missing link" in the University’s heated walkway system, allowing students and staff to walk "unencumbered" between the cluster of science and engineering buildings and the Law and Commerce wings or the Place Riel and Library areas. He says plans for restoration of the College Building include final linkages (probably underground) to both the Physics Building and the east end of Saskatchewan Hall – and an enclosed walkway may join the Admin. Building to Kinesiology, when it’s built. Tennent acknowledges that both Education and Veterinary Medicine would still be unconnected, but suggests that both are "fairly tolerable [i.e., short] walks" from Agriculture and Engineering or Commerce and Law, respectively. He says a walking link is also envisaged between the west classroom wing of Arts and the Health Sciences Building.
For further information, visit the web site or contact communications@usask.ca
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Next issue of On Campus News: Friday, November 26
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