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PSU, HACC architecture students display design and student-built projects May 24 at Hershey Philbin 'Spring Fling' reception Harrisburg Area
Community College students designed and built
kiosks, which will be used to inform Harrisburg
community members about the Harrisburg
Urban Studio. The
kiosks and other Urban Studio design projects will
be on display at a art
reception on May
24. The reception recognizes HUS's first year of operation. The exhibit will be on display throughout the month of June. Initiated by Harrisburg Mayor Stephen R. Reed and modeled on Auburn University's Rural Studio, HUS provides an innovative curriculum so architecture students can interact in a real urban learning experience and apply their talents and skills to improve the environment of disadvantaged urban people. Students from Pennsylvania State University and Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC) worked with the City of Harrisburg to evaluate the city's urban landscape, design more than 50 building plans for the reuse of abandoned urban space, design potential housing uses for buildings beyond repair, and build informational kiosks to educate the community about the importance of sustainable design-build Urban Studio projects. "The students were presented with a variety of different urban challenges this year," Robert Philbin, Urban Studio Task Force coordinator, said. "The scope of their work and their ability to navigate the very real social, professional, and governmental structures in Pennsylvania's capital city is very impressive. "Our students came from all over the world -- China, India, Spain, Brazil," he noted, "to study at participating architecture and landscape architecture schools, and their creative ethic, imaginative and humane approach to urban architecture has certainly established a very high standard for future Harrisburg Urban Studio architect and urban planning students." Building bridges In October 2004, an advance group of graduate students from the PSU Hamer Center for Community Design Assistance came to Harrisburg to work in the Urban Studio and develop initial neighborhood mapping and leadership plans necessary to establish good community relations in the various stressed Harrisburg city neighborhoods. HACC architecture students joined PSU School of Architecture students in the Spring to design more than 50 mixed-use buildings for empty lots in Harrisburg's Allison Hill district. "These highly innovative and diverse designs provide city planners with opportunities to develop stressed neighborhoods, which signals an improved environment to those citizens who will live out their lives in these neighborhoods," Philbin said. "Sam Mockbee would be proud." The City of Harrisburg generously provided 2,500 square feet of studio space in the historic centrally located Harrisburg Transportation Center, and Mayor Reed reviewed and critiqued each of the 50 designs in detail with each visiting student. HACC second-year architecture students, working in the Urban Studio, directed a working charrette process and designs for possible uses of an empty abandoned Laundromat located in the mid-town area of the city. "These designs and the pragmatic process of discovering them, provides the city with options to develop reusable and sustainable architectural resources," Philbin said. "These are very important first steps toward integrating the architect and the design-build process into this city," Philbin added. "Our goal of actually building sustainable structures which enhance the lives of people who would otherwise never experience the elevating impact of architecture is still on the horizon. However -- thanks to progressive leadership from the city, architecture schools across the state, the professional community, and these very talented students -- it is an attainable goal in the near future." The final project of the semester, "migrating kiosks", is the first Harrisburg Urban Studio projects completely designed and built by students. They will be set up throughout the city to inform people how the Urban Studio benefits residents. Migrating educational kiosks HACC adjunct professor of architecture Bruce Quigley says the kiosks will help educate the community about the possibilities of sustainable architecture in various neighborhoods in Harrisburg. "The kiosks will migrate around the city to raise awareness of the Harrisburg Urban Studio and help organize neighborhoods to work more closely with the Studio community relations committee," he said. Quigley says his class is working with city planners to identify locations to raise awareness of the power of architecture to define the human environment. A number of central Pennsylvania architects, engineers, contractors and construction products firms are actively supporting the Harrisburg Urban Studio. "An Urban Studio in Harrisburg could not have been possible without the cooperation of many ethically motivated community, professional and business leaders," Philbin noted. "It is a tribute to Sam Mockbee and Auburn University, I think, that the wider design-build community has really stepped up and accepted Mayor Reed's challenge to bring an Urban Studio and Mockbee's concept of the 'citizen architect' to Harrisburg." Hershey Philbin Associates gallery is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and by appointment. For more information on the Harrisburg Urban Studio or directions to the Suite 3 Gallery, contact Nathan Pigott at (717) 975-2148, npigott@hersheyphilbin.com. |
