Jonathan Ochshorn - Critique of Milstein Hall

tentative book cover design for OMA's Milstein Hall by Jonathan Ochshorn

My book, OMA's Milstein Hall: A Case Study of Architectural Failure, has been published. Much of the material formerly included in these "Milstein Critique" webpages has been removed from these pages and incorporated in the book. Some supplementary material remains on these webpages — primarily videos and links to related documents.

2. Water and thermal control

Figure 3. Video (4-1/2 minutes long) by J. Ochshorn shows the workers creating ad hoc details in order to align a stone panel at the intersection of Milstein and E. Sibley Halls (video shot June 13, 2011; can also be viewed directly on YouTube).

Figure 7. Video (1 minute long) by J. Ochshorn shows the seismic "bellows" between Milstein and Sibley Halls (video shot Dec. 20, 2011; can also be viewed directly on YouTube).

Figure 11. Video (2-1/2 minutes long) by J. Ochshorn shows water leaks and repairs in Milstein Hall Gallery (video shot June 2012 and August 2013; can also be viewed directly on YouTube).

Figure 11a. Video (8 minutes long) by J. Ochshorn shows water leaks and repairs in the plaza deck above the Milstein Hall Gallery (video shot July-September, 2015 with some older construction clips from June-July, 2011); can also be viewed directly on YouTube).

Figure 12. Video (top, 1 minute long) by J. Ochshorn shows water leaks through the roof membrane or roof flashing in Milstein Hall (video, top, shot Nov.-Dec. 2010, April 2011, and July 2013; can also be viewed directly on YouTube). More recent leaks through the skylight (video, bottom, shot May 2015; can also be viewed directly on YouTube) have appeared in April 2015, requiring the removal of a large section of the "green" roof to try to find the problem — presumably somewhere along the flashing. [Update: May 24, 2017] Two years after this repair process was started, the roof has not been put back together again: see this blog post for details.

Figure 14. Video (2-1/2 minutes long) by J. Ochshorn shows lack of serious waterproofing in Milstein Hall's covered concrete "dome" (video shot Oct. 2010 - March 2011, with dome hosing shot Aug. 2013; can also be viewed directly on YouTube).