How+to+Get+Screwed

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In order to continue, I should probably define the media genre I am writing on. Usually, when talking about media control, advertisement and news media might be coming in to our mind. But I would like to discuss something else.

Interior design is my choice. First of all, could interior design be media at all? Well, in terms of its channel of communication – interior design is a visual presentation. Does it convey any messages? Yes. Halloween could be the greatest example of how house decoration can send message to other people. Some people will perceive it as just scary, others will be impressed with homeowner’s design skills, etc. Another good example of how design would influence our perception is described in the journal article “A quite revolution”, published at the Design Week (2006) Bury writes how British libraries have been changing their design to offer a “lifestyle experience” rather than just book-reading venue.

How does this have anything to do with being screwed?

People judge things by the way they appear. Most are willing to put in a little bit more money in to their purchase just to make sure it looks good. Everybody knows that, and that is the reason we spend extra time tidying up our old crap before selling it on eBay. Coming back to the interior design topic, most large companies are willing to spend whole fortunes designing their buildings if they are intended to accept potential customers. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, in fact, I like to show off myself sometimes too, even when I am not trying to sell anything.

Now to the “getting screwed” part. University of Toronto has built four new buildings at Mississauga campus and have one more coming up in September. At the downtown campus there have been at least three new buildings built, and there are at least two more done at Scarborough campus, all of which has been done in the past three years. All of those buildings certainly do look great; especially the first time you visit them. Most of them feature sexy futuristic design, flashy lighting, media galleries, all-glass exterior, underground parking lots etc. There is one problem though: all of them feature extremely bad design (regarding to usability).

One building at the St. George Campus requires walking all around the first floor before getting to the room that is just next to the entrance. CCIT building at Mississauga campus features absolutely worst use of space ever, and possibly the worst elevators in the world. Kaneff building is designed possibly using Einstein’s quantum physics that states that shortest distance is achieved by traveling in a curve, not a straight line. Not here on earth though: that building has offices the size of male washroom’s toilet stalls and necessity to travel 15 minutes from office to office instead of 10 seconds.

What might have caused all this inconvenience? Well, as mentioned above, first impressions are everything. Most of the buildings discussed above communicate sense of great financial recourses, university’s willingness to invest in own facilities, students and staff, use of most relevant and cutting-edge technologies and information to provide best education possible. Unfortunately, even though I am sure many or all of those things are true, there is NO OTHER PURPOSE to those buildings than just communication of the listed above ideas to potential employees, students and other customers. This could be compared to using a 48 inch HDTV screen to play air hockey at home.

To summarize, the University of Toronto spends its student’s money on building design that is aimed solely towards bringing more financial resources but does not benefit current staff or students in any way.

Is there a better way? Sure there is! The University of Toronto should spend its own money on advertisements and use student’s money to build user-friendly buildings, not just flashy million dollar ads that will annoy us for the whole time we are present at the campus.

REFERENCES:
A quiet revolution. Bury, Liz. Design Week, vol. 21, pt. 28, pp. 9, 13 July 2006. (content). University of Toronto website (content and graphics). http://www.mrnice.com/ (graphics).

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-d.