It's Final Defense Season!

Master of Architecture candidate Justin Poczatek makes the final defense of his thesis entitled "Behavior and Architecture" in the school gallery. Professor Davey's Kid Architecture Camp for High School students attended the presentation. The students asked many great questions of Justin, who handled his defense like a pro!

New Graduate Studio!

Installation just completed yesterday on the new furniture systems for the graduate studio at SIUC! Students will have professional workspaces with secure storage and cabinets. Shown in the background are the new cabinets. In the foreground, a standard studio setup for a graduate student at SIUC. Tables include integrated electrical connections. Internet connections are also available. Since campus uses wireless internet, these are not installed in the workstations. New solar shades remain on order for the studio. They will replace the blinds, that, as you can see by this image, are in need of replacement.

This image looks toward the east wall in the studio. Thirty workstations await the arrival of the next class on Monday, June 14! Twenty eight new Master of Architecture students begin their studies this summer.

Senior Studio Happenings

In this posting I would like to share what is happening in Professor Swenson’s senior urban design studio. We began the year studying Mississippi delta cities in preparation for our final project which focuses on Cairo, IL. I studied Little Rock, AR for the first project. The second project involved breaking up into teams and visiting delta cities. My team visited Cincinnati, OH and Louisville, KY. Now, our class is devoting our efforts to urban revitalization in Cairo.

We are working with the City of Cairo Planning Advisory Committee, the Vision 20/20 Committee and other stakeholders in our revitalization efforts. The Cairo Vision 20/20 Committee is striving for a “new and revitalized Cairo by the year 2020”. Our class is broken up into four teams. Team One is working on bringing the Cairo Junior High/Senior High students back to the vacated Junior High building in the center of town and renovating the facility to LEED Platinum status. Team One will also propose an adaptive reuse strategy for the current Junior High/Senior High building should the students move to the other building. Team Two is working on downtown revitalization and riverfront development including a marina. Team Three’s goal is to re-establish residential neighborhoods and give identity to the Cairo Historic District with preservation and infill housing strategies. Team Four will study adaptive reuse of the Southern Medical Center and CHESI Clinic facilities for senior citizens demonstrating LEED Platinum design.


Cairo, IL was once a healthy, vibrant city with a population of 15,000. It now contains about 3,000 residents. Many houses and buildings sit abandoned. Buildings are being condemned. Very few businesses remain open. Our class would like to reverse these trends and help Cairo became a healthy city again. We will build on the work of previous senior studios, and we will also build on the relationships that have been established with the citizens of Cairo as we strive for a new and revitalized Cairo by the year 2020.

--Ben Temperley, M. Arch. Student. Images in this article taken by the student.

Transparency in Buildings

While researching different ways to bring people into the hotel we have planned for studio, some things came to mind. What pulls people in? How can the building, as a whole, pull people in from the street? One major characteristic that drew my attention was a quote from Richard Rogers- "buildings which are full of light, light in weight and which are flexible......can [allow you to]read how the building is put together." Some examples are in building facades, exposed mechanical and structural systems, partial height partition walls, and screens, to name a few. The way each of these aspects helps show how a building works, and how it is able to withstand forces of nature, but also how even a floor plan layout can move people in and around spaces and bring people together -- all of these are aspects of transparency in buildings.

Recently in many "green" buildings, structure is exposed to avoid waste in materials. Where an acoustical drop ceiling used to be hung to cover mechanical systems and structure, now they are left exposed, as in our graduate studio. External stairs, escalators, elevators and moving sidewalks show onlookers how people move throughout the building. People can see the "guts" of a building and visually realize the work that goes into it. After seeing the size of some of the ductwork and mechanical equipment, they might even begin to realize the amount of power that is needed to run one of these systems. This "inside out" approach will help reduce materials, give texture to the building and draw people in by enticing them with a view of the inner workings.

There is a lot that goes into constructing a building. Why not celebrate this by exposing as much as possible? This will also allow for some pretty dramatic lighting as well as shadows in the evening.
--Robert Hildreth, M. Arch. Student

Fast Food Culture Shock!

Why do foreign visitors surprise American culture on first visiting time? Living
style seems to be the best answer. Americans have their traditional culture, fixed habits, and daily pace, so foreigners must try to respect and appreciate American culture.

What kind of differences between American culture and Taiwanese culture is most special? Diet habits. Americans do not like to eat much vegetable. When visitors come to America, they discover an interesting phenomenon: the fast-food industry.

It is difficult to draw a dividing line between fast food with American culture. McDonald’s, for example, has become not only a trademark of today’s world, but also a symbol of American cultural product.

Americans also like to put an amount of ice into their beverage. In Taiwanese healthy concept, this habit will disturb the circle of body’s blood circulation.

To compare this diet habit in Taiwan, people like to taste various vegetables, including cabbage, celery, snow bean, and so on. Taiwanese always focus their attention on health and exercise, so they care about what kind of nutrition they absorb into their body. More meat and fast food will invite more serious diseases and harmful substance into human being’s immune system.


Image above retrieved from http://www.appletreeblog.com/wp content/2008/07/david-fast-food.jpg

--Kang-Hsin Fan, M. Arch. Student from Taiwan

The Distinguished Alumni Lecture

Ms. Kelly Kealey-Mayton, above, presented the 2009 Distinguished Alumni Lecture for the School of Architecture on Monday, October 12. Ms. Kealey is a graduate of the school's fashion design program.

Kelly Kealey is the owner of Dance Sport Designs of Allen, Texas. Last year, she submitted the winning entry in the "Design a Dance" competition sponsored by Macy's for the song "Great Balls of Fire" on ABC-TV's "Dancing with the Stars." Ms. Kealey has been providing high level dance gowns for fifteen years. Examples of her work, shown below, have been on display for the last few weeks in the School of Architecture Gallery in Quigley Hall. Her design sketch and YouTube video of the dance are available.


Ms. Kealey's design are the highest level of couture design available. She drapes every design by hand and individually places beads and other decorative elements onto each dress. Last year, she also designed the Sony Ericsson Z750 purple cell phone dress used in advertising for the phone. The ad was used by Sony Ericsson worldwide.

In her October 12 talk in Browne Auditorium on campus, Ms. Kealey spoke to the students about her journey after college to her present career in Texas. She encouraged students to pursue their dreams and talked to them about the importance of staying positive and networking with other SIU alums.

The School of Architecture was very pleased to honor Kelly Kealey-Mayton as this year's Distinguished Alumni! The Fashion Design and Merchandising programs at SIUC have approximately 100 students earning the Bachelor of Science degree on the Carbondale campus.

Healthcare Architecture

Healthcare architecture is something that is frowned upon by many of the professors here at SIU. And why shouldn’t it be shunned in a school setting? Hospital design adheres to more codes than most professional architects care to learn, they’re too sterile to really get “down and dirty” in designing, and they’re associated with so many negative feelings already, why put students through a project that’s not any fun?

These are all valid points. Yes, there are lots of codes, yes they must be somewhat sterile, and yes, they have negative connotations. But wait, why are we here? Most students are asked that the first year they’re here, and most all of us give that same canned response “to improve something blah blah blah”. Alright, so let’s learn some codes. Being able to adhere to these “so restrictive” codes will not only make us better designers, but set us apart from other graduates entering the workforce.
“But they’re so sterile.” Yeah, they’re sterile, but that doesn’t mean white walls and padded rooms. Hospitals today are opening their windows, planting healing gardens and making use of daylight in a way that hospitals have never seen. And with environmental design so prominent, daylighting, natural ventilation and “greenery” are all making a huge “comeback” (for lack of a better word).
“But hospitals are just boxes of negative space.” Again, you’re right. But, going back to day one, aren’t we, as designers, challenging ourselves to improve spaces, to make them more enjoyable? Then why aren’t we doing it?

I was talking to some of the other grads about this same topic, and they response was that hospitals were bland, that they don’t give you the opportunity to design. There’s a trend in hospital design that notices that there’s not much difference on the patient side of things between a hospital and a hotel. Anyone reading this can think of multiples of awesome hotels, why not hospitals?

We’re here to learn to design so we can solve problems later on. The fact that this project type is actively avoided proves to me that it has problems. Can we do anything about it?
-- Jason Epley, M. Arch. student