We often see the architectural process in digital mockups of future buildings on the fences around a construction site. This is the extent of what people uninterested in architecture may see of the process, other than the final building. The new exhibit at the EMU in the Adell McMillan gallery, called “The Sculpted Space: An Architectural Exhibition,” hopes to show the connection between art and architecture that is not fully focused on or addressed in architectural work.
The exhibit features the work of seven architecture students: Ryan Arreola, Brena Daly, Ashley Fenner, Nicole Jackson, Liam Mears, Jeanne Ruby and Sophie Tawa. Arreola, a fourth-year architecture student, was also the curator of this exhibit. He originally presented the idea when he interviewed for the installer position, and the visual arts team liked it so much they helped bring the idea to the space.
“But the reality is that there’s always kind of an element of our artistic influence to it. So Ryan really wanted to explore kind of what that intersection that how an architect or an architecture student would express themselves through their different processes,” third-year architecture student Liam Mears said. Mears said architecture professors may stray away from the artistic side of the work, focusing on the surgical process of creating buildings and landscapes.
Mears displayed the details for a proposed redesign of the fire station on East 17th and Agate. The parts he displayed included detailed mock-ups as well as tracing paper work of the building’s layout. This helps show how it evolved from sketches to the polished final.
In creating his works Arreola expands from the symbolic nature of what they want out of the building. “That comes through sort of iterative sketches and modeling, and both physical and digital modeling. It comes through the sort of thinking about it from an artistic standpoint, through like, making art from it. It’s quite a process,” Arreola said.
Many of the students present physical models with mock-ups showing how the designs can work in real life. Even though the models may be the bones of the building, it still shows how it may look in its full form.
Another student involved in this is fourth-year architecture student Brena Daly who focuses on the process of her work, showing rendered mock-ups of housing that goes against the cookie-cutter mold of most quickly built houses. She also displays her drawings of Johnson Hall from different angles and uses styles that break down the facade of the building.
“I think it’s cool just to see the artistic range of architecture students, and it’s cool for other people to see what architects are working on because I feel like it’s not as broadly showcased as some of the other arts are at the school,” Daly said.
The exhibit creates an opportunity for architecture students to show their work to the rest of the student body. “We don’t have a lot of time to interact with other majors outside of Lawrence. I think it’s just a little window into what we do and how I think people look at it as more of a scientific field or engineering based, but there is a lot of creativity and artwork that go into the process,” fifth-year student Sophie Tawa said.
Visit the exhibit at the Adell McMillan gallery to look over every detail and step in their work. The exhibit will be on display until March 12.
Several eye-catching digital prints made by Brena Daly, fourth year architecture major, can be found in the exhibit. The Sculpted Space: An Architectural Exhibition, a collective exhibit with work from UO architecture students, is located at the Adell McMillan Gallery in the EMU and will run until March 12. (Mary Grosswendt/Emerald)
