Enormous cranes, trucks, bright orange trailers, and lots of mud. That pretty much describes how the Alonzo G. and Virginia Decker Quadrangle (located just south of Garland Hall) and the southern end of the Homewood campus have looked since last spring. To the untrained eye, it was a mess. But slowly, order seems to be emerging from the chaos.

The Decker Quadrangle, set for completion in the fall of 2007, will establish a new public entrance to the Homewood campus, including a visitors and admissions center (Mason Hall), the Whiting School’s new Computational Science and Engineering Building, and a massive underground parking garage, covered by a new multi-use quadrangle.

As you might imagine, the whole undertaking has meant moving a lot of dirt and pouring a lot of concrete. To get a sense of just how much, consider:

Dirt removed from	
construction site: 			12,000 truck loads*

Average depth of hole
dug for parking garage: 		30 feet

Capacity of underground garage: 	604 vehicles

Concrete poured: 			18,504 cubic yards

Rebar installed: 			2.1 million pounds

Post tension cables installed: 		144 miles

Mechanical piping installed: 		14,200 linear feet

Concrete masonry
units (CMUs) used: 			45,000 blocks

CMU grout used: 			150 cubic yards

Tent tie-downs installed (for
special events) on new quad: 		64 metal anchors

Labor hours: 340,000 hours
Area of Computational Science
and Engineering Building: 		79,000 square feet

*Figures as of press time