BETTEZ | Forget the Public Policy School, Give Us a Design School

Here’s a scenario that has totally never happened to me before: you’ve had a long day of classes and you’re ready to finally head home to your apartment in Collegetown, when you find yourself pulling on a push door as you exit, say, Upson Hall. You feel like an idiot; you’re a junior and here you are, looking like a prospective student visiting campus for the first time. But what if I told you that’s not your fault? That, instead, you’ve fallen prey to one of the most common design errors: the Norman door. First coined in the 1988 novel The Design of Everyday Things, the Norman Door is the result of poor and conflicting design decisions that make it difficult to determine how to operate the door, often resulting in a reliance on signage, or allowing its users to feel like idiots every day.

‘Light in All Senses’ Renovated Mui Ho Fine Arts Library Opens Its Doors In Rand Hall

When students in the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning returned to campus this fall, they were greeted with a grand addition to their historic Rand Hall — the completion of the new Mui Ho Fine Arts Library. The new space houses approximately 100,000 volumes of fine arts, design and urban planning materials as well as new spaces for research, computing, instruction and studying, according to an AAP press release.

Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning Retains Top Ranking

“We do innovative things as a matter of course in the department, from bringing in new faculty with exciting and creative areas of expertise to hosting exceptional guest speakers and critics from around the globe to sending our students to engage with various locations around the country and the world,” he explained. “Special is the norm here.”