Architects' Week to Show Student Projects
When the annual Architects' Week begins on Friday (Feb. 4) on the Tulane uptown campus, once again groups of architecture students will forgo nights of rest and their social lives to participate in week-long design and build projects.
At last year's Architects' Week, one student group designed and built this winning structure to provide seating and information. After it was finished, students moved it to its final location at the corner of Leonidas and Hickory streets. (Photo by Nora Schwaller)
Six groups of architecture students, each with two leaders, begin designing at 5 p.m. on Friday. The design phase lasts through the weekend, and then the students will pick up materials on Sunday afternoon (Feb. 6), signifying the start of the building process. For the majority of next week, production of projects will be done out of the shop and on the patio of Richardson Memorial Hall.
Joining the group as a mentor for the student-operated event will be Jing Liu, an alumna of the Tulane School of Architecture, co-founder of the New York firm So-Il (Solid Objectives â“ Idenburg Liu), who received a master of architecture degree from Tulane in 2004.
The intent is to push creativity through competition, says Nora Schwaller, Architects' Week 2011 committee chair. “For some students it is an opportunity to lead, for others an opportunity to meet their fellow students. As members of the School of Architecture it is our time to get out of studio and build something,” Schwaller says. “We are encouraging experimentation and hoping for it. The project brief is simple: projects must interact with one of the five senses and be kept within a reasonably defined footprint.”
Projects must be finished and installed around the Lavin-Bernick Center Quad and the Newcomb Quad by Feb. 11 at 5 p.m. to be considered eligible for the competition. Faculty members will act as judges and will comment on the projects, and the winners will be announced later that evening. The projects will remain up through the beginning of the week of Feb. 14.
