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Students lead renovations in Architecture
The students used maple plywood to construct a new circulation desk and shelving in the School of Architecture and Planning Library.
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Design is everywhere—in the color of the walls, in the texture of the carpet, in the quality and intensity of the lighting in a room. It is in the shape of a chair, the size of a table, the grain of wood used in flooring. More than appealing to our senses, design evokes emotions, shaping the way we view the world. Small changes to a space—a little more light, a little less clutter—can lift our spirits, enrich our lives.
This philosophy has infused a series of student-led renovations of public areas within the School of Architecture and Planning in recent years. While multimillion-dollar construction projects at UB make the news regularly, the more modest improvements students have spearheaded are also transfiguring the university. Dean Brian Carter likens their work to acupuncture—“a small intervention with a large impact.” Architecture, Carter says, is not just for the wealthy, but for everyone—for the rich and the poor, the young and the old.
Projects in Hayes Hall, South Campus, where Carter’s school is located, have included the redesign in 2008 of the Architecture and Planning Library, the overhaul in 2007 of a visual resources center and the remodeling in 2006 of a ground-floor lobby into a gallery where posters, books and 3-D architectural models are exhibited. Students planned and carried out the jobs with faculty members’ help, grappling with budgets and building for real clients.
“It is important,” Carter says, “for designers to know how to make things, to know how much things cost, to know they have to deliver on time.”
Beyond enhancing the educational experience UB offers to students, the School of Architecture and Planning’s small projects will benefit the university community for years to come. The library renovation demonstrates the transformative power that architecture can have.
If design evokes emotion, the sensation the library conjured before the redesign might best be described as something akin to vertigo. A makeshift circulation desk comprised two, rectangular, four-legged tables arranged to form an “L.” Computers rested atop this piecemeal counter, with a stream of electrical cords protruding from each one and hanging in plain view. A cacophony of office equipment and supplies—an electric pencil sharpener, a printer, a telephone, books, date stamps, paper, pens, tape—was splayed across the desk, contributing to the messy feel. Workers sat in a hodgepodge of non-matching chairs. Storage space consisted of metal racks and filing cabinets.
Early in the spring 2008 semester, architecture master’s students Michael Bailie, Ernest Ng and Dan Stripp approached Carter, expressing interest in completing a full-scale project of some kind that would continue serving their school after they graduated. The dean recommended that the team take on the library remodeling.
With the enthusiastic support of Stephen Roberts, associate vice president for university libraries, the three students were able to prepare designs and assist in building the new architecture library in Hayes Hall.
Working closely with the library’s staff to determine the facility’s needs, Bailie, Ng and Stripp designed a new circulation desk and new shelving to go behind it. The three began building in May 2008, finishing construction that August.
In their hands, the library underwent a metamorphosis. Gone was the discordant assemblage of furniture. In its place, the young architects had installed a long, wooden circulation desk. Computer cords could be hidden behind a solid facade that faced library patrons checking out books. Supplies could be kept in built-in drawers. Along the wall behind the desk, Bailie, Ng and Stripp had erected tall shelves made of the same material as the maple plywood counter. The new structures lent the library an air of elegance, with their modern look and polished edges. Adding more style to the space, the pieces the students created were inspired by the library’s operations. The circulation desk, comprising a row of vertical wooden panels of varying widths, mimicked a bar code. The new bookshelves, divided vertically at irregular intervals by wooden boards, owed their design to the same concept.
“Library staff asked the students to consider three important factors in the design of the service desk and surrounding staff work space,” says Karen Senglaup, director of access services for the UB Libraries, which paid the School of Architecture and Planning about $20,000 for the remodeling, money that went toward supplies and paying the students. “The circulation desk needed to be ADA-compliant. The new space needed to provide circulation staff enough space to comfortably perform their tasks. And the newly renovated area needed to be much more attractive. The students delivered in every regard. The bar code design was a stroke of genius. We are very happy with the result.”
“They were highly professional, extremely accommodating and they understood how important it was to develop the project around the client’s needs,” Senglaup says. “I felt as if they were listening to what I was saying.”
Stripp, who collaborated with another student to lay out and design display cases for the James Joyce exhibit in UB’s Anderson Gallery, says gaining hands-on experience with paying customers is invaluable, a rare opportunity in architecture school, where students often draw and model their ideas, with few chances to build.
Ng, who will begin work in fall as a visiting assistant professor at Mississippi State University, cherished building something useful, something that would “take on its own life.” Future generations of UB architecture students won’t remember chaos and clutter that defined the old Hayes Hall library. Instead, as they open a book or convene a study group, they might admire the new design—the light, clean color of the wood, the sleek, polished texture of the varnish—a design that inspires calm.
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