Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design Hosts Largest Summer Design Camp in School History

Students sketch the campus site along Maple Creek, where they designed an outdoor classroom during camp.

Students tour the Arkansas Architectural Archives, in Special Collections at the University of Arkansas, located within Mullins Library.

Students work on their projects in studio in Vol Walker Hall on the University of Arkansas campus.

A student works with clay to create a project model in studio.

The Design Camp group at Garvan Woodland Gardens poses on top of the John Manning Scott Bridge of the Full Moon.

Students sketch the view while standing on the Millsap Canopy Bridge, two stories above the forest floor.

Students take in Anthony Chapel, designed by school alumni Maurice Jennings and David McKee.

Becca Ohman, right, tells students about the Evans Children’s Adventure Garden at the garden.

A student sketches in the fern-filled forest at Garvan Woodland Gardens.

Students tour the area along the Arkansas River, sketching the landscape and cooling off in sprinklers.

Students tour a project site, led by Wesley Walls, a Fay Jones School alumnus and principal at Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects.

Students work in their studio inside the Arkansas Studies Institute in downtown Little Rock.

A model from the Little Rock camp is displayed during the exhibit at StudioMain.

A closing reception and exhibit of work from the Little Rock camp was held at StudioMain.

Michelle Parks

Models and drawings are displayed June 12 for the final exhibition in the Smith Exhibition Gallery of Vol Walker Hall.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The Design Camp hosted by the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas is not a typical summer camp. It is sometimes hard to believe that the work produced by the camp's junior high and high school students isn't coming from a design team with much more experience.

Each year the Fay Jones School hosts Design Camp, a weeklong event for students going into ninth through 12th grades who are curious about architecture and design. This year, three camps were held in Fayetteville, Hot Springs and Little Rock during June. With the expansion to three camps, this year also boasted the largest group in the camp's history, with 69 students total in attendance at the three locations.

Alison Turner, the faculty instructor who led the camp, kept the agenda consistent for the camp's entirety, as she worked with other faculty members and teaching assistants at each location.

"We did an outdoor classroom project in all three camps for consistency purposes, and it worked out well. We had a similar agenda, but there were various differences in locations that allowed for new discussions and new opportunities," Turner said.

Turner and the accompanying faculty instructors and teaching assistants at the camps took each group through the process of a designer. Although they are distinct design disciplines, architecture, landscape architecture and interior design all share many similar processes. Before visiting the project site, each group discussed various aspects of interior design for the project, including adjacency, components and configurations of the classroom in order to prevent distractions once on-site, where the discussion related more toward aspects of landscape architecture.

In the camp's home base of Fayetteville, the highlight of the camp was the overall campus experience for these pre-college age attendees. Turner was joined by Kim Furlong, an interior design professor, and Noah Billig, a landscape architecture professor, along with several teaching assistants.

They proposed an on-campus outdoor classroom as a structure that university students could use but that would also provide a space for tailgating at football games. The site was the hillside across Maple Street from Reynolds Razorback Stadium. With 41 students in this camp, two options were given for the outdoor classroom design, which provided more diversity in the final projects.

At Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs, students designed a classroom for the Evans Children's Adventure Garden, which led to discussions about the garden's potential for a classroom and who might use it.

In Little Rock, students spent time working at the Arkansas Studies Institute building and studied historical buildings and structures. Turner originally wanted the outdoor classroom in Little Rock to be on the Riverwalk, but, due to the already planned and set structures, she and the Design Camp team decided to plan the outdoor classroom project on the grounds of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library.

Justin Tucker, a teaching assistant, helped in all three camp locations, and Carl Smith, a landscape architecture faculty member, joined them in Little Rock.

Turner said that about 95 percent of students had a strong interest in architecture, landscape architecture or interior design before they attended the camp.

"We had some really serious campers. I was surprised at the level of commitment they showed throughout the camp. They would get so excited about their projects that it was hard to get them to put their work down and stop at the end of the day," Turner said. "They didn't just enjoy it; they seemed invested."

Many students tried not to compromise ideas just because they had a hard time finding a way to make them real.

"Students would have an idea, and they weren't sure how to go about making it happen — to turn a vision into something tangible," Turner said. "One student had the idea to make a barrel-vaulted roof that changed dimensions, similar to a cone, but he was struggling to get it on paper. He ended up going straight to building a model to work it out."

Students attending the camps came from all over Arkansas. A few of them attended while visiting family from their homes in Tennessee, Texas, Missouri and New York.

During the Little Rock camp, two students approached Turner with the intent to collaborate on their outdoor classroom design project. Their reasoning was that they had too many ideas and they weren't sure how to accomplish them individually. One of the two students was visiting the other from out of town, and they had decided to come to Design Camp together.

"Because we typically don't have students work in teams, it was a much different work process," Turner said. "And it gave me the idea to come up with something where students can potentially work together in the future, even more than they do already."

Receptions held at the end of each camp provided a chance for parents and other family members to see the students' work. Students never ended up formally presenting their work due to a lack of time, but their projects were still displayed for public viewing. It was a great opportunity for the students to stand back and see each other's work and for the parents to see the fruits of the week's work.

"If the students were stressed before, once they were finished and their parents were there, they really came to life. You could tell they were proud of the work they accomplished," Turner said.

In Fayetteville, students displayed their work in the Smith Exhibition Gallery of Vol Walker Hall. In Hot Springs, they had just enough room to put work around the room where they spent the majority of their time. At both locations, they discussed their projects in final reviews with faculty and peers. Becca Ohman, garden director, also helped with the camp and spoke with students on several occasions during the week.

In Little Rock, the camp ended on June 26, and the students' work was taken to StudioMain, a local collective design non-profit comprised of individuals from various design fields in Arkansas. The opening reception was held that night, and, along with the students and their families, members of the community attended and were able to view these students' projects. During the camp itself, young architects in various firms across the surrounding region came to Design Camp and spoke with each student as they worked.

"We are trying to bring people from the community in to participate in the camp, and I think in Little Rock we definitely did a better job at connecting with the local design community," Turner said.

As Design Camp came to a close, the students were ready to go on and use their newfound problem solving skills and this experience to guide them down their educational path.

"In the beginning, everything is new to them. They are a little more hesitant but excited to start," Turner said. "In the course of a week, it's incredible to be able to see their confidence grow."

Read more about Design Camp on our Form Plus Function blog: Part 1 and Part 2.