Building's Design

Could it have been that Macalister Hall was purposely built to allow so much light to penetrate one side of the building but not the other?  With its arrangement of windows, light as well as moisture are somewhat restricted.  With the intent of the building being to serve many purposes, the solar conditions needed to be considered so that they are not confined to one setting, but are allowed to change depending upon location in the building.

The percentage by which the outside wall is mostly windows, or the percentage of fenestration is approximately 15%.  This value was obtained by taking the north elevation and calculating the typical area of one window, multiplying that area by the number of windows for that elevation, diving it by the total area of that wall, and them multiplying by one hundred.  This percentage is approximate because three out of the four elevations have the same amount of windows in the same pattern.  The west elevation is the only one with a different pattern due to what the spaced is used for on that side of the building.
   

Other possible Considerations...

Could the building have been designed differently as to change its aesthetics, yet fulfill all of the desired requirements and remain within the set limitations?  To pose this question raises the thought of, "Was this the only design introduced by the architect"?  With the recent exterior upgrades to the adjacent Mandell Theartre, one could only imagine how aesthetically pleasing Macalister Hall would be if it underwent such a facelift.  Most likely at the time of its erection, it was probably quite appealing drawing attention from many.  With the high rate of construction taking place on campus now, will Macalister soon be outdated architecturally.  Less than a few hundred feet away a new apartment building is being constructed.  Will  Macalister hall as well as Creese be in a loss for competition as far as which building projects a more modern appearance?  Or will this new building have to conform to the pre-existing building which have already set the architectural tone of the image Drexel is portraying?  Regardless of which style is subducted for the other, aesthetics is still there as a weighting factor of what looks better.