Dear editors, students, and other readers;
I have a gripe that has bothered me for quite some time, one that especially irritated me while I was still on campus at Illinois Tech. Consider Crown Hall, McCormick Tribune Campus Center (MTCC), or Hermann Hall. These are often heralded as pinnacles of design on the Illinois Tech campus. The liberal use of glass clearly invites outsiders to look inwards, creating a space that is meant to be open from the outside. If I had to create meaning based on the little architectural knowledge I know, perhaps its meant to accentuate the ideals of liberal higher education, bringing forth knowledge to the masses. And, energy efficiency aside, it is a very interesting idea that creates for a unique campus.
Alongside these windows are plenty of doorways into these buildings. And yet, despite all these doorways, most of them are marked with the dreaded “Emergency Exit Only” red text. Indeed, it feels most of the buildings on campus are left to one or two actual entrances, with the rest reserved as emergency exits only. I’m sure many students can recall their first time attempting to navigate around campus, seeing a doorway into the building they desire, only for those words to slowly become readable upon approach. Why?! Why are buildings designed with such conflicting values, causing consistent minor headaches for everyone involved? With a month now elapsed, I’m sure many students are now familiar with the sound of alarms going off after an outsider or unfortunate package delivery person attempted to leave through one of these doors, as everyone waits for Public Safety to arrive.
I can better understand exit-only doors, especially for residential buildings. Safety is important, so ensuring that people are funneled in through the more secure doorways with card scanners and (sometimes) student staff can be a passive and active way to enforce security. But even still, why are the other doors emergency exit only? The amount of doorways I passed in McCormick Student Village or Rowe Student Village that would have helped save time every single day, only for them to be marked for emergencies only was a constant annoyance that no doubt summed to hours of wasted time. So, to anyone who knows the answer: why the abundance of emergency exit only doors?!