This one took me by surprise- the [concrete?] entryway pieces are actually pre-fabricated, as you can see the different pieces here that came off a pallet, and have been lowered into place. This is just the very beginning of a large installation on the western side. Not much else has visibly changed on the exterior, but you can take a peek at a few photos of the raw interior here: Image Gallery | Gates Hall.

An assortment of concrete piles for the elaborate entryway look set, and the front cantilever has been supported with additional steel beams. The western front on the Hoy Road side will be interesting to watch, as the concrete steps are filled-in making their way down to the sidewalk.

Here are some more photos of the spaceship. Besides some work on the future main entry, I didn’t notice much change on the exterior from two weeks prior. Archdaily has a few posts about Thom Mayne (the architect), and in fact, he’ll be designing the first landmark building for the NYC Tech Campus. If you like this sort of work, here’s an extensive post on Cooper Union, a building he designed and was finished in 2009.

This is certainly an interesting building to see. From a distance, it almost looks like a futuristic spaceship landed on the Cornell campus. There’s a lot of work still to be done on the exterior, most notably the entryway, where the stepped concrete wall will rise up into two pillars that touch the bottom of the cantilevered section.