The Concrete Project

Tuesday, April 28 was a busy day in the Quigley courtyard! ARC 362 (Structures II) students were busy pouring their concrete beams for testing next week. Professor Robert H. Swenson has taught this course for many years and includes hands-on learning activities for the students.

Athena Sandravelis (L) and Shane Healey (R) have built their forms, placed the tension reinforcing, and are ready to begin the pouring of the concrete.

Here is a closer view of the beam design.

After allowing the concrete to cure for seven days, the students will load their beam designs and test them to determine how strong their creations are.

Students Yuko Aoki and Andrew Bevis work on their beam design. Talk about an international project! Yuko is from Japan and Andrew was raised right here in Jackson County, Illinois!

Masonry Day at SIUC

The Illinois Masonry Institute recently presented Masonry Days at the SIUC campus. Students from the School of Architecture learned a great deal about masonry construction and were given the opporunity to lay brick under the instruction of masonry professionals. Robin Morrow England, a junior in architecture, is seen at the right being shown how to place brick.

Junior Derrick Wildes has buttered his brick and seems to be considering his next move very carefully. For many students, this was the first time they had been this up close and personal with masonry products.

The event was arranged by Professor Norm Lach. As you may be able to tell by the images, it turned out to be one of our cold spring days instead of our legendary warm spring days in Carbondale.

The day ended with Masonry Jeopardy inside the Student Center Auditorium. Although Norm's Home Boys scored well with those double jeopardy questions they luckily kept finding, the Blue Falcons ended up dominating the event. Students from the winning team received gift cards to Best Buy.

Fun in Studio!

Junior Dan Corte enjoys a McGangbang in studio. The McGangbang, invented at Daytona Beach, Florida, is a combination of a double cheeseburger and the spicy McChicken sandwich from McDonald's. Place the entire chicken sandwich between the cheeseburger's patties, open wide, and enojy! Perhaps we should place defibrillators in studio, just in case?

Where on Earth?

How well do you know your architectural geography? Where on Earth?: The Architect's Guide to the World by ABC Arcade gives you the chance to find out! You'll see a famous work of architecture and then click the map of the world to locate it. Speed and accuracy are scored and you must meet the minimum points required to advance to the next level. Give it a try!

Spring in Carbondale!

Spring is beginning to arrive in Carbondale! This image of daffodils in full bloom is from the front yard of Associate Professor John K. Dobbins. There are 65 blossoms in this group of daffodils.

Construction Tour: The View Baptist Church

A regular feature of Building Technology courses at SIUC is a site visit. This spring, ARC 342: Building Technology III (Steel), visited the construction site of The View Baptist Church in Carbondale, Illinois.

The church was designed by Architect Thad Heckman of DesignWorks in Carbondale. Mr. Heckman teaches one of the three lab sections of ARC 342 this spring. The 18,000 sf church building replaces the original First Baptist Church in downtown Carbondale. Those familiar with the building know it as the large stone Romanesque Revival building with the rose windows. As you can see in the image above, Mr. Heckman paid homage to the original church design in the forms used for the new church.

The spire on the northwest corner of the building points toward the original location of First Baptist in downtown Carbondale. The new church building is located on South Giant City Road. The original stained glass windows of the church have been transplanted and used in the new building, as shown in the image below.

The sanctuary of the new church is tuned to the acoustics of the human voice. The SIUC School of Music will present a choir performance in June in the sanctuary.

Thanks to Thad Heckman for arranging and guiding ARC 342 students through the church!

ArchitectTV

Architect Magazine posts videos of items related to the profession of architecture. Currently, they are featuring thisyear's P/A Award winning projects. This year's winning projects are quite varied, ranging from a Drive-in and Park by Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith to the 90-story Al Sharq tower by SOM in Saudi Arabia. Check out all the projects and the web site!