0 0 o 0 0 0 0 e e e0 THE EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK with WALTER NOWINSKI tab le of contents A look at the big news events this week and how important they really are. Conveniently ranked from one to 10. WenedaFerur 7 20 -Th 6OignDaly 7 3B THE JUNK DRAWER Impress your friends by knowing just what to talk about this week and what not to. 4B LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE Our photographer travels the path many students will - out of from Michigan and into a big city. He just takes a more poi- gnant route. 7B BUILDINGS AND BUSTLES Turns out the words vogue, chic and tragic apply to more than clothing. MagazineEditor:AnneVanderMey EditorinChief. Karl Stampf ManagingEditor: Jeffrey Bloomer PhotorEdito nn Pter5 rotteol Dsigver:ridgeO'onel C verr:vngla cosrer NOT YOUR DADDY'S NEW DEAL Tough economic times call for dramatic solu- tions.Just don't tell Gov.Granholm that. Her fifth Stateof the State included none of the to bold solutionsone might haveexpectedto 8hear. Instead she offered up optimism and rehashed proposals. Maybe more happy-talk will bring Pfizer back to Michigan. MORE GUNS, LESS BUTTER The White House released a 2,500 page, $2.9 trillion budget on Monday. The docu- ment calls for massive increases in defence to spending at the expense of social programs 6 and health care. Who needs butter? Ameri- cans are overweight anyway. 2 ASTRO-NUT An extraterrestrial crush has resulted in kidnapping and attempted murder charges against one former astronaut. Lisa Nowak to drove900milestokidnapanotherwoman who she believed was coming between her and a fellow astronaut. Apparentlyzero gravity can makeyou do some crazy things. THE BOOZE MADE ME DO IT San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom checked into alcohol counseling this week after admitting to an affair with his cam- paign manager's wife, It seems like check- 10 ing into alcohol counseling can get you off the hook forojust about anything. STILL COLD It's still cold. The good, the brick and, theugly It's Over Your Head j Architecture Column 0 s Hollywood's award season reaches full swing, people tune in across the country to watch the world's most glitzy and glamorous people get their due. But if there's one thingmore important than which actor takes home that golden statue, it's what they're wearing as they take it. On the red carpet, the fashion police patrol with vigor and without remorse. Wearing last season's dress is the worst crime a celebrity can commitbesides appearing on VHt's Surreal Life. A-list actors, forever in the spotlight, are bound by unwritten Hollywood law to be en vogue around the clock, and fashion designers lay themselves at the mercy of the fickle and tasteless. Doesn't sound a lot like architecture? It is. It might not seem like an easy parallel to draw, but architectural dialogue is a lot like fashion. Unlike his- toric building styles rooted in cultural philosophies, today's architecture is about style. The increasingly popular term "post-critical architecture" suggests quite simply that recent architecture has no mean- ing. Architects that follow this burgeoningcredo have one goal: create an awesome spatial experience. Yet new experiences soon become old, and radical events quickly become banal. As buildings try to encapsulate what is cool, they merely create a tactile chronology of changing style, like the closet of an aging actress. While Madonna can reinvent herself each year, archi- tecture can't stay cool forever. Fashion trends come and go, but buildings aren't quite as transient. But one of the perks of chic architecture, at least for me, is that we can speak of buildings like we do fash- ion. I'm no Joan Rivers, but I would like to honor the age-old fashion tradition of exploiting the ritzy, rec- ognizing the glamorous and mocking the gruesome. After looking at all campus has to offer, I have come up with a University of Michigan-themed list of what's hot and what's not in architecture fashion. Hot Glass. Seeing through buildings has always been cool, just ask Superman. Glass has been updated and upgraded to accom- plish more tasks than ever before. Double-skin glass facades look great and also act as a thermal barrier. It's all the rage in Europe, and the Biomedical Science Research Building proves that it can be done in Michigan, too. Art Galleries. The buzz about Daniel Libeskind's geometrically crazed Denver Art Museum Extension has reignited interest in art museum architecture across the country. Museum interest comes and goes like the tides. Usually, an explosive building will reawaken architects to the art museum world. Wright did it in 1959 with his New York Guggenheim, and Gehry did it in 1997 with his Bilbao Guggenheim. Right in step with the buzz, the University's own art museum expansion began con- struction this year. Its design promises to provide both the art gallery and central campus with a multitude of layered, cool spaces filled with stark white and diffused daylight. Sustainability. People are becoming more and more aware that our actions truly impact the environment. The terms sus- tainability and green are fast becoming the building buzzwords of the decade. Al Gore's film on global warming miraculously transformed his image from a stale, presidential tragedy to a crusading rock star. Organic foods have exponentially gained popularity, as have green buildings. As of last summer, the U.S. Green Building Council's sustainability-based rating system was used on over 2,000 buildings in this country. On campus, both the new Business School and the Mott Children's Hospi- tal are aiming for certification from the council. Students have rallied for North Quad to do the same. Hopefully this is one fashion that is not fleeting. Not Mass. Specifically, concrete. Concrete was idolized during the 1920s because it was considered a fluid and pliable structure - never mind its grotesqueness. Brick is the new concrete on this campus. Just look at the designs for North Quad, Weil Hall and even the Big House. Regal but not flamboyant, brick is back to provide the solid monuments we crave without the mono- lithic quality of concrete. Art. As always, the discussion about dynamic art museums has devolved into issue of respect. Does a funky space create artistic competition and detract attention from the canvases that hang on the wall or does an artful building pay symbolic reverence to the artifacts that it contains? In the end, it doesn't matter. It's the building that's enduring. The art is just a foot- note. Even if the University does have a lovely vase exhibit. Being sustainable. Sustainability may be popular thing to talk about these days, but environmentalists still carry the stigma of tree-hugging hippies. People want environmentally-friendly buildings, but that doesn't make the grunt work fun or the engineers tackling the problems any more sexy. Even Al Gore is still a nerd. Plus, nobody looks good under energy-efficient fluorescent lighting It's cool to demand environmental archi- tecture, but it is geeky to calculate the energy capacity of a photovoltaic array. This trend may change soon, but first we need to get the Michigan Solar Car team onto the cover of Low Rider magazine. rule 13: It's College. Make poor choices while you still can. rule 14: If you've graduated or you're married, you probably shouldn't have a Face- book account. rule 15: If you don't make eye contact with the people handing things out on the Diag, you. don't have to feel bad about not taking it. - E-mail rule submissions to TheStatement@umich.edu ROSS From page 6B Our bread and butter. Most stu- dents, even those not in Ross, know mandatory group work at the undergraduate level is coun- ter-productive. But the B-School is literally tearing down one of its buildings to better facilitate it - the current structure on East University Avenue will be leveled to make room for a building with U-shaped class rooms so that stu- dents can more easily interact. Mandatory group work teaches you how to manage, and thus it's at the heart of a Curriculum designed to build professional managers. What this really means, though, is that it teaches kids how to assign tasks to people who aren't capable of doing them, how to schedule wasteful meet- ings to re-format and explain other people's work and how to make PowerPoint presentations. I've read enough Dilbert to know that the B-School model of man- agement is accurate. SPEICALS Domino's Pizza Lucky Kitchen Burrito Joint Pita Pit Medium 1-Topping Pizza General Tso's Chicken Combo Chicken or Steak Burrito Chicken Caesar Pita (North & Central Campus Locations) campusf ood.com. Feb7th m18th ONLY! ONLY ON CAMPUSFOOD.COM - Delivery only. Minimums apply. Visit www.campusfood com for details. While supplies last