I took a walk through Bren Hall today, the first I'd been there since it was under construction. The offices were all painted and carpeted, some of the furniture is in, and some hardy pioneers were already working in theirs. My office has roughly half its furniture: the desk, conference table, and conference table chairs were there, but the bookshelves, desk chair, and whiteboard were not. Predictably, the power and network outlets on the walls were placed where they'll be inaccessible, covered by bookshelves...

The interior color scheme of the building seems to be white-orange-green; for instance, the hallways are tiled mostly off white with patterns formed by orange and green tiles, and some of the walls are also colored orange and green. Someone seems to have gone to some effort to color coordinate the furniture: all the upholstery on my floor is orange while all of it on the next floor down is green.

I spent some time wandering around to the other offices, seeing how the furniture was arranged. Even in the offices without furniture there was a plan taped to the doors. One faculty member seems to have been stuck with a plan consisting only of a small sofa in the middle of the room, perhaps because the real plan didn't get through the approval process in time for the furniture order. I seem to be the only one who has arranged my desk so that, when sitting at it, I can look across the room to the view through the window. Everyone else either has the desk facing the door (and away from the window) or in a U shape near the window so that if they sit facing the window they'll have their back to the rest of the office. Of course, my plan puts my back to the door but I'd rather see the window and have my back to the door than spend all my time staring at the door. Which is probably anyway going to spend more of its time closed than my current office door does, as it looks out into a bare hallway instead of a more welcoming suite area.