Building on success

Students from the Architecture Department partied with their professors, parents and peers last Thursday, as they presented their projects in the Interim Design Center for the department’s Interim Design Showcase.

The American Institute of Architecture Students, a student organization on campus, provides workshops and events for students in the program and was in charge of the quarterly event.

The Cal Poly chapter of the national nonprofit organization is the biggest chapter in the country, with approximately 212 members.

 “This is the main event we do every quarter,” said Sandeesh Sidhe, fourth-year architecture student and events coordinator. “It’s good for the younger students to come, because this is the work they’re going to be doing.”

As music was deejayed and food and drink were provided, students’ best works from each year of the five-year program were on display.

 “Its an honor when you’re chosen to have your project shown here,” said Sidhe. “And it’s something you can write on your resume.”

The Interim Design Showcase, which has been around for nearly three years now, was started by Michael Fox, an architecture professor in the department, who saw the need for an event where students could let loose and relax while still learning.

“It started building momentum,” said Fox. “At first, we coordinated everything and then the students slowly started taking it over and now they do everything and we just come to the event.”

Part of his motivation for starting the event was to allow students to disseminate their ideas at the start of each term, which would allow them to learn from each other.

“On one end of the room you have first-year students and on the other, fifth-years thesis projects,” he said. “[Students] come here and see other strategies and it brings up the whole level. The point here is to build camaraderie within the department.”

Many students and faculty from  engineering departments and Landscape Architecture Department attended the event and gave feedback about the projects on display.

The program offers interdisciplinary studios that allow collaborations between students from different programs on campus, such as architecture and civil engineering.

“When you go into the profession and you get to interact with different medias and different groups of people, it’s helpful to be able to do that here,” Sidhe said. “In the profession we all do work together, so it’s good to start interacting with everyone.”

Because the department is limited on funds as well as food they are able to provide, AIAS is looking to partner with the Collins College to provide food made by students for future events.

“Next year we are hoping to collaborate with the Collins College of Hospitality Management, where they would demonstrate cooking the food and serving it,” Sidhe said.

John Orr, a second-year architecture graduate student, was one of the students who was chosen to display his project at the Interim Design Showcase.

The project he designed and built was a retreat studio on Mount San Antonio for a Japanese filmmaker.

“The focus of the class was to design a building and develop the structural details all the way through to constructability, which we don’t do with a lot of the other projects,” he said.

Throughout the evening, graduate students were asked to present their work to engineering professors and students with the goal attaining helpful feedback from individuals with distinct perspectives.

“This is very enjoyable, it is much more relaxed,” Orr said.

Orr received his bachelors’ degree in mechanical engineering from University of California, San Diego and has found that his background has proven to be useful for the studio classes, which require a great deal of technical follow-through for each project.

“We are expected understand engineering,” he said. “We have to do the structural calculations and designs ourselves.”

For more information about the Architecture Department or the American Institute of Architecture Students Cal Poly chapter, visit www.csupomona.edu/~aias.

Reach Amanda Newfield at: editorinchief@thepolypost.com