Hands On Architecture

HANDS ON ARCHITECTURE
DESIGN/BUILD STUDIO AND SET DESIGN COURSE PROVIDE STUDENTS WITH OPPORTUNTIES
TO COMPETE AND COLLABORATE TO CREATE THINGS OF BEAUTY


DESIGN/BUILD STUDIO EXPOSES STUDENTS TO REAL LIFE EXPERIENCES RANGING FROM CHANGING PROJECTS MIDSTREAM TO HAND FINISHING RAW CUT LUMBER IN THE MODEL SHOP

Thanks to the Design/Build Studio, under Visiting Critic Jim Adamson’s direction with Professor Rocco Ceo’s assistance, 14 students will begin their architecture careers with a built project already in their portfolios.

Adamson, a longtime member of the famous Jersey Devil architecture design/build collaborative, led students in a successful effort to create then build a wooden pavilion that now serves as a shaded sales structure on a world famous orchid farm in the Redland in south Miami-Dade County.

The project, full of real life challenges, fulfilled a long-time goal to make construction a regular part of our the School of Architecture's curriculum.

The studio started out with the goal of building a park pavilion, but that idea got caught up in local bureaucracy, so a new project had to be designed, built and fabricated in the remaining half the of semester.

Ceo and Adamson agreed that dealing with the realities of building versus designing provided invaluable experience to the University of Miami students as they train for careers in a challenging economy.

"It is difficult coming up with a single design idea out of a group, but our students are very good about that because they do a lot of collaborative projects," Ceo said. "Once we get to building, it takes on a life of its own -- it transitions from a personal project to a collaborative project. It's not an abstract line on your computer, it's out there and you're building it. It really connects design concepts with construction."