Witters Competition 2011

This week marks the return of the Witters Competition, a competition in which student design teams from DCP will compete for a $3,500 prize. This year the teams will race to create designs and solutions for Alachua County’s proposed Resource Recovery Park project.

The park, to be built at the Leveda Brown Environmental Park, would be implemented in response to Florida’s ambitious goal of recycling at least 75 percent of the municipal solid waste by the year 2020. After visiting the site, teams will develop project feasibility and conceptual plans for the park’s economic development.

Teams will receive the project at 3 p.m. tomorrow. From that point on, they will have just 48 hours to complete and submit their projects, as presentations to judges begin at 4 p.m. Sunday in Rinker Hall.

In the real world, architects, contractors, interior designers, planners and landscape architects interact with each other every day. In the academic environment, as students learn their specific discipline, they don’t always have the opportunity to work with the other disciplines as they will when they graduate.

The Witters Competition provides this opportunity. Each team consists of a student from each discipline in the college: architecture, building construction, interior design, landscape architecture and urban and regional planning. As each student on the team provides input regarding his or her part of the project, the team learns more about the other professions and the issues affecting their work.

Established in 1993, the Witters Competition is endowed by Arthur G. and Beverley A. Witters for a collegewide interdisciplinary academic competition to foster better understanding among design, construction and planning students.

Soundscapes of Music Rehearsal

Doctoral student Lucky Tsaih presented “Soundscapes of Music Rehearsal,” during the Research Showcase today. The project looked at acoustical design criteria of music rehearsal room and studied things such as room volume, ceiling height, reverberation time and sound isolation.

In conclusion, Tsaih found the following to be the most important design criteria of a band room:

• speech intelligability
• intonation
• rhythm
• dynamics
• articulation

Reflection-In-Action: Architecture students design and build kiosk for Studio Percussion

It may be summer, but for five DCP architecture students it was still time for learning.

Breanna Rossman, Kyle Altman, Jeff Glad, Nicole Paul and Dylan Rinda came together for an independent study this summer, working together to design and build a kiosk for the local nonprofit Studio Percussion, which provides music education to the community.

Architecture assistant professor Charlie Hailey, who headed up the project, described it as “a room within a room.”

He said that the purpose was to provide organized storage and display and serve as a central space for the studio’s daily operations.

“Conceptually, the kiosk works as a musical instrument itself – a construction that has acoustic resonances and can in effect be ‘played,’” Hailey said.

The five students pose with the finished kiosk in the Plaza before its installation at Studio Percussion.

The students began preparing for the project in April. According to Hailey, they worked together on all aspects of the venture. Meetings with the clients and design work occurred in May, and the acquisition of materials and construction work proceeded through June and July.

The students were able to use the wood, both oak and pine, from recently decommissioned studio desks to construct much of the kiosk.

Hailey said that the idea for the project came from student interest and research as well as his own experiences with design-build projects. The team considered four projects before settling on Studio Percussion.

He thinks it was a good choice.

“Design-build projects like this engage multiple educational experiences for students,” Hailey said. “In terms of process, thinking and making are brought into direct contact; and conceptually, eye, hand and mind work simultaneously to revisit the design process and its immediate consequences.”

Hailey said that while many proponents of design-build cite “real world” experience as the biggest advantage, he feels that it is something else.

“I don’t think it’s so much the ‘real world’ experience as the immersion in a reflective practice that may mirror some of their future ‘reflection-in-action’ professional work and goes more deeply into considerations of why and how they are doing this,” he said. “Related to this is the added engagement with the local context – a unique dialogue between university and community that transcends simple volunteerism and goes to the heart of service learning.”

And when it comes to learning and this project, Hailey said that he’s learned just as much as the students.

Take their advice: Talks with retiring faculty

For inclusion in an upcoming issue of our newsletter, Perspective, I was asked to interview and profile various DCP faculty members who had recently retired or who would soon be retiring.

When I first heard about the project I was excited but a little nervous about the prospect of speaking to so many knowledgeable people. However, I needn’t have worried – each one of them was more than glad to talk to me, and I learned a lot from our conversations. In fact, many of them offered advice to students, current or graduating, and it made me think about how lucky UF is to have professors who care so much about their students and their futures. I thought it only appropriate that others be able to learn from their words, as well. My advice? Take their advice.

Francesco Cappellari

Associate professor, Architecture

“I think it’s a hard profession. Keep your enthusiasm going and keep dreaming. If you persevere and know who you want to be, you probably will discuss things with your teacher in a whole different way. I think my invitation would be this: be courageous, take educated risks and remember that architecture is about observing.”

Rocke Hill

Associate professor, Architecture

“Like any career it has its ups and downs, but when the poetics and pragmatics all come together and you see that and realize it’s something that’s going to impact our environment for a long time, it’s really a very special feeling. Seeing something you’ve nurtured, designed, created … it’s something that’s hard to replace. It takes you to the greatest highs and lowest lows. It’s a roller coaster of emotions, but something that most people who do it don’t regret.”

Pete Prugh

Associate professor, Architecture

“I would give this to all students: you are responsible for your own education. The university is just a structure to help shape and focus your education. You’re going to be exposed to many different faculty members, and you may agree with some, some you may not. But you are the one who is responsible. I couldn’t understand students who would go through school and say ‘I’ll take whatever they tell me to take next semester.’ Students need to learn how to use electives effectively.”

Chuck Smeby

Lecturer, Rinker School of Building Construction

“People you work with will try to influence you. It’s not a good idea – unless they ask for advice – to give it. People will be a little prejudiced of people who go through our program because our graduates have knowledge they don’t have. There is sometimes a little jealousy. The most effective way to work is to work slowly. Perseverance wins the day more than anything. Don’t take yourself so seriously that you have to go out each day on a crusade and win the war each day. Take your time and enjoy it.”

Look for the full articles about these and more faculty members soon in Perspective.

The Road to Spain: Two Months Left

The last time I’d been out to the construction site there was really nothing for a layperson to see – just various materials waiting in a storage building. But on April 5 when I ventured out once more, there was another building on the site – an 800-square-foot sustainable house to be exact.

The Solar Decathlon Europe competition takes place in June in Madrid, Spain, and UF’s Solar Decathlon Team has been working around the clock all weekend to make sure the sustainable house is ready to be shipped in time.

Trucks, Jeeps and storage trailers were parked at all angles on the nearby grass and wires and ladders adorned the remaining space.

The house nearing completion.

The house, sitting on a raised platform, was the center of attention for the students. Bustling around in the hot midday sun, they deftly maneuvered the machinery and materials as they began preparing to run an acoustical test.

Architecture and acoustics master’s student Adam Bettcher told me that the acoustics test consists of a speaker shooting sound at a very loud level toward the building. They test how much of the sound makes it through the various walls to the other side, and can then make any necessary changes to the structure.

Some houses need better scores on acoustics tests, he said. It would be crucial for a house built near a highway, but not as critical for a house in the middle of a forest.

“This is a very unique building,” he said.

Students worked around the clock over the weekend to bring the house closer to completion.

Standing behind the Danger Keep Out, Authorized Personnel Only, Hard Hat Area and Safety First signs, I watched the progress.

In their dirt-streaked jeans, sunglasses and hardhats, the students looked tired, but pleased. It was exciting, they said, to see it come together.

Paige Mainor, architecture master’s student, said the next step is to work on the interiors. But as June approaches, they will soon be reaching the final steps of the process –deconstructing the house for shipment to Spain.

“We’re all looking forward to putting it in the shipping containers,” Mainor said. “It definitely feels good.”

Doing the Gator Chomp at “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

While we waited for the family to arrive home, I posed with Jamie Goldman and Lindsay Marten, fellow UF students.

Cameras clicked, mothers dragged reticent children by their wrists and people passed water bottles through the crowd. It was hot and the grass was muddy; particleboard had been spread on the ground, probably in an effort to protect expensive footwear, though it might also have been a shot at saving the neighbor’s overrun lawn.

Shoulder to shoulder and pulsing against the barricades with excitement, the crowd stared across the street toward the house.

It was not your typical Monday morning; this was the final day of shooting for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which was visiting Gainesville. The home of the Wagstaff family had been remodeled and both Julie and I had come to see the finished product – a project on which several University of Florida and College of Design, Construction and Planning affiliates had worked.  

One of the affiliates was graduate architecture student Ryan McGinn, who was working as a production assistant for the show. Neither Julie nor I had ever met him before, but when we arrived around 11:30 a.m., we called his cell phone and he graciously came to meet us.

After the typical introductions he spoke with us for a few minutes and walked us to our places where we, like so many others, stood waiting for the action.

In a way it wasn’t that different from a Gator football game. The dress was a sea of orange and blue, the green alligator mascots Albert and Alberta came dancing down the street and UF cheerleaders led the crowd in rousing choruses of Gator cheers.  People did the Gator Chomp for the cameras, and sang “It’s Great to Be a Florida Gator.”

But the atmosphere was also one of a movie set. Crew members called instructions to the crowd; we practiced chanting “move that bus!” twice and at one point we even practiced looking left as the limo driver rehearsed his drive down the road before parking behind the huge, multi-colored bus.

“Where’s Ty?” people asked.

“Grey shirt, curly black hair!” a woman called, yelling photographic instructions to a young girl perched upon the shoulders of a tall man.

Julie and I stood a few rows back, directly across the street from the house, soaking in the atmosphere as onlookers jockeyed for position. Earlier in the day it had looked like it might rain, but by afternoon people were standing underneath umbrellas in defiance of the unbearably hot December sun instead. Bystanders held the ends of welcome home balloons and handmade signs that proclaimed “We Love Ty!”

Around 4:30 p.m., while we were waiting for the family members to arrive home and view their new house for the first time, Julie and I decided to take a walk up the long row of people to the left.

During a stroll down the long line of people, I was able to meet Paul DiMeo, one of the show's designers.

During this stroll I met one of the show’s designers, Paul DiMeo, for a few seconds, and just minutes after taking a photo with me, he looked up from signing someone’s shirt and announced, “they’re just around the corner!”

The family was on its way.

When the limo rolled down the small street a roar went up from the crowd. Three times they chanted “move that bus,” and minutes later it zoomed forward, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake and revealing to the family their newly remodeled home.

The crowd exploded with cheers and whistles, and it’s a funny thing. The heat, the jostling, the mosquitoes and the exceptionally long wait … it didn’t really seem to matter that much to them.

“I’m happy for the family,” said a lady to my right. And that’s how it seemed to be all around – from the spectators, the crew, the volunteers and the UF students like Ryan.

Happy for the family.

View outside my door

This project is actually around the corner from my office.

This week, instead of the typical white walls in the hallway of the third floor in the Architecture Building, I had the view of interior design junior studio projects. I spoke with interior design professor Jo Hasell about the projects. She explained that the students are working with P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School. The school is affiliated with UF’s College of Education.

The interior design students worked in teams of three to put together a proposal for a new elementary school. In addition to working on an overall concept, each team member chose one of three learning communities to focus their designs.  The learning communities allow for a team-teaching approach and are divided by grade: 1. kindergarten and first grade, 2. second and third grade and 3. fourth and fifth grade.

The projects were presented to key stakeholders and will be revising their designs based on the feedback.

This is the view directly across from my office.