The University of Oregon has developed a novel concept to facilitate its expansion, making use of what the school calls “wasted space.” The university will build an athletic center for women’s sports and place it on stilts over the Pioneer Cemetery.
UO Athletic Director Rob Mullens says the idea solves two problems. “First, it’s not like the dead people are doing anything there, so it’s pretty much wasted space,” he says.
Second, Mullens says, despite the recent success of the UO women’s basketball team, “no one really cares that much about women’s sports or comes to watch them. So with this new facility, the women can go play sportsball by themselves and free up places like Matt Knight for real sports.”
He points out the new Center for Ladies Innovative Teamwork in Sport will be conveniently located near Gerlinger and Susan Campbell halls, “traditional locations for women’s stuff on campus.”
“The cemetery is located close to Hayward Field and other sports facilities,” he points out, adding, “When they are done with games and practice the girls can go watch the men play and cheer them on.”
The stilts over the cemetery is an old idea made new again. According to information from the UO libraries, “For many years the cemetery was considered as a viable space for future university growth.” In 1963, Lutes and Amundson architects designed a plan that “envisioned placing buildings over the graves by means of stilts and enabling navigation through raised walkways and bridges.”
UO interim spokesperson Molly Blancett says that using the old stilts plan with some modifications will also save the school money.
“Really the only thing different about architecture these days is that we need to plan for bigger earthquakes,” she says. “In this case it would only fall on dead people, and we just need to make sure living people can evacuate.”
Blancett says that, with limited attendance at women’s games, evacuation should be easy, and the school will install emergency slides re-purposed from soon-to-be decommissioned Boeing 737 Max 8 airplanes.
A Note From the Publisher
Dear Readers,
The last two years have been some of the hardest in Eugene Weekly’s 43 years. There were moments when keeping the paper alive felt uncertain. And yet, here we are — still publishing, still investigating, still showing up every week.
That’s because of you!
Not just because of financial support (though that matters enormously), but because of the emails, notes, conversations, encouragement and ideas you shared along the way. You reminded us why this paper exists and who it’s for.
Listening to readers has always been at the heart of Eugene Weekly. This year, that meant launching our popular weekly Activist Alert column, after many of you told us there was no single, reliable place to find information about rallies, meetings and ways to get involved. You asked. We responded.
We’ve also continued to deepen the coverage that sets Eugene Weekly apart, including our in-depth reporting on local real estate development through Bricks & Mortar — digging into what’s being built, who’s behind it and how those decisions shape our community.
And, of course, we’ve continued to bring you the stories and features many of you depend on: investigations and local government reporting, arts and culture coverage, sudoku and crossword puzzles, Savage Love, and our extensive community events calendar. We feature award-winning stories by University of Oregon student reporters getting real world journalism experience. All free. In print and online.
None of this happens by accident. It happens because readers step up and say: this matters.
As we head into a new year, please consider supporting Eugene Weekly if you’re able. Every dollar helps keep us digging, questioning, celebrating — and yes, occasionally annoying exactly the right people. We consider that a public service.
Thank you for standing with us!
Publisher
Eugene Weekly
P.S. If you’d like to talk about supporting EW, I’d love to hear from you!
jody@eugeneweekly.com
(541) 484-0519
Comments are closed.