Jonathan Ochshorn — Errata page for OMA's Milstein Hall: A Case Study of Architectural Failure

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Paperback errata are listed below according to print edition revision numbers (e.g., Version 1.0, 1.1, etc.), which are indicated on the copyright page. The latest paperback version 1.3 was uploaded Nov. 12, 2025, and is now available. This version has no known errors.

pp. 223–224. There was a conceptual error in the last paragraph on p. 223, which stated that upgrading Sibley Hall's wooden Mansard roof to 2-hour fire-rated construction (making it type IIIB instead of type VB), would apply only to Sibley Hall as a freestanding, independent building, and would have no effect on the construction type of a combined building that included Sibley Hall along with Milstein and/or Rand Hall. In fact, Milstein and Rand Halls, combined with an upgraded Sibley Hall, could be considered type IIIB construction, since the exterior walls in all three buildings are noncombustible. Even so, the allowable area for the combined buildings, considered as type IIIB construction, would still be less than the actual second-floor area of the combined buildings, so such an upgrade would not render the project code-compliant. The paragraph has been corrected to reflect these facts.

OLD (DELETED)
If Sibley Hall's Mansard wood-framed walls were upgraded to 2-hour fire-rated construction, its construction type would be upgraded to IIIB, allowing increased floor area. However, such an upgrade would apply only to Sibley Hall as a freestanding, independent building, and would have no effect on the construction type of a combined building that included Sibley Hall (i.e., Milstein-Sibley-Rand Hall or Milstein-Sibley Hall). This is because Type IIIB construction requires 2-hour fire-rated exterior bearing walls, which a freestanding (and upgraded) Sibley Hall would have but which a combined building that included Milstein Hall would not have. The only construction type that permits all elements to have no fire-resistance rating and permits combustible elements (i.e., the wood floors and roof framing of Sibley Hall) is VB.

NEW (ADDED)
If Sibley Hall's Mansard wood-framed walls were upgraded to 2-hour fire-rated construction, its construction type (considered independently, i.e., not connected to Milstein and Rand Halls) would be upgraded to IIIB, allowing increased floor area. However, such an upgrade would still not make a combined Type III Milstein-Sibley-Rand Hall code-compliant, since the basic tabular allowable areas with type IIIB construction are the same as with type IIB construction and, as can be extrapolated from the values in Table 1 (using a frontage coefficient of 0.57 for the combined buildings, an NS tabular area of 9,500 square feet, and an SM tabular area of 28,500 square feet), the type III allowable area would only be 33,915 square feet (3,151 square meters), which is less than the actual combined second-floor building area of 43,954 square feet (4,083 square meters).

p. 53. Delete the word "the" in the phrase: "resulting in the needless energy consumption."

p. 141. Replace "includes" with "include" in the sentence: "I use this term to includes things like sloppy detailing and inattention to functional considerations."

Version 1.0 (as first published Sept. 27, 2023): Errata include all entries below:

p. 7. Move the "Sunken Garden" number key (19) from the ground floor plan to the basement plan.

p. 38. Add end parenthesis after "(since it prevents both floor area and wall area from being used productively)."

p. 92. Remove hyphen from "atrium-culture" in the sentence: "And not only that, this atrium-culture fosters complacency and destroys our ability to think..."

p. 92. Replace "uncovered" with "unenclosed" in the sentence: "So it's possible that this ideological posturing had some influence on the decision to leave Milstein Hall's arcade unconditioned, uncovered, and—most importantly—without any formal or functional references to the despised prototype of the atrium/mall."

p. 116. "Milstein Hall is then placed precisely at the intersection of these two zones, symbolically forming a linchpin or connecting structure—a '[a] contiguous, multi-layer system of buildings and plazas'…" [delete the extra "a"]

p. 145. In the text, change "fig. 9.3 top" to "fig. 9.3 left"; change "fig. 9.3 bottom" to "fig. 9.3 right"; change "fig. 9.5 top" to "fig. 9.5 left"; and change "fig. 9.5 bottom" to "fig. 9.5 right." Note that the figures themselves are labeled correctly.

p. 344. Correct "corridor-to room air transfer" by adding hyphen: "corridor-to-room air transfer."