CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A collaborative project between architecture students and the Ricker Library of Architecture and Art at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign aims to enhance the library’s materials collection and increase student engagement with it.
Through an independent study led by architecture professor Hugh Swiatek, the students are exploring the architectural details of three buildings and creating drawings and models of them. They developed an exhibit of their work for the library that opens May 4. Their project eventually will become part of the library’s materials collection.
The independent study grew out of conversations between Swiatek and Emilee Mathews, the head of the Ricker Library, about increasing awareness and use by students of the library’s resources. The materials collection, created about three years ago, includes samples of materials that might be used in construction, such as concrete, steel, bricks and textiles, or that help convey information about a project, Mathews said.
“Students can get a tactile sense of the materials they are going to be working with that’s missing from books and computer screens,” she said.
Swiatek said he uses the library on an almost daily basis with his students, and it’s rare that he is looking for a resource that the library doesn’t have. He said he and Mathews “talked about how models and a connection between the materials and actual projects could really serve as a pedagogical tool and drive more use and engagement in the materials collection.”
The six students in the independent study — five graduate students and one senior — chose three buildings to study, all of which use different types of materials. The Sendai Mediateque is a library and art gallery in Japan with a slab and column structure built primarily with steel and a glass facade. The Maison du Département des Solidarités in Langon, France, is a social services building constructed with natural materials, including straw. The Auckland Art Gallery in New Zealand features a roof design with treelike canopies made from kauri wood native to New Zealand.
The students explored three elements of each building — ornament, envelope and structure. For example, the Sendai Mediateque study shows how the building’s steel floors and tubelike columns work together to provide support, and how a honeycomb plate structure inside the floor can help transfer the load evenly, said graduate student Mohna Sharma.
The students made a model of one of the canopies of the Auckland Art Gallery, with detailing of the soffit. “The wood planks are bent and make this really beautiful ornamentation covering the outside and inside spaces,” said graduate student Ryn Blackburn. The model will be suspended in the exhibit with a mirror to show what the canopy looks like from above.
The model of the French social services building uses wooden slats and dowels to represent how the building’s wicker shutters diffuse sunlight into the building, said graduate student Gabriela Ramos-Avila. The students also created models of lamps used in the building with weaving similar to that used on its window shades. The initial models were made from yarn that proved to be too flimsy. The final models were created with a 3D printing pen.
Such “study models” will be part of the exhibit along with the final ones, to show the various iterations and how the failures led to different design decisions, Blackburn said.
“A lot of the model creating doesn’t look pretty but it’s important and integral to how we get to the final stage,” they said. “Seeing very finished models can sometimes be very intimidating, especially when you’re starting school and you don’t know what each material can be used for in a model.”
Ramos-Avila said her first project as an architecture student had some “crazy,” regrettable curves. She saw finished models but wasn’t sure how they were built. Sharma said looking at models built by previous students and the details and materials they used helped her in building her own skyscraper model for a class.
In addition to the models, the students created booklets for each building that contain detailed drawings of the buildings, a site analysis, photos of their models and a description of the process of making the models. They also will place book bands on library books that relate to the subjects in the exhibit.
Mathews called the exhibit an “exploded 3D bibliography.”
“Students are helping co-curate the library for the benefit of their fellow students. They are creating materials, setting up ideas of how to exhibit them and relating them to the books and journals that we have,” Mathews said.
“We want students to come in and see the work, see the process, but also see that all the resources that are the drivers of the work are here in the library,” Swiatek said.
Blackline Supply, a Champaign business that sells model-making materials and art supplies, sponsored the exhibit, providing materials for the models and helping with their production.
Editor’s notes: To contact Hugh Swiatek, email swiatek3@illinois.edu. To contact Emilee Mathews, email emathews@illinois.edu.
