UA ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS DESIGN AND BUILD LOW-INCOME HOME

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Mashburn Avenue is chaotic this semester: cars are parked bumper to bumper along the curb; students are carrying two-by-fours to a house under construction; hammers pound out of sync with one another.

Greg Herman, associate professor of architecture at the University of Arkansas, points to the second floor of the house, already framed after only two weeks of construction. Nearby, Eva Kultermann, clinical professor of architecture at the University, helps students hoist lumber up to the second floor.

For the second consecutive year, Bank of Fayetteville's Community Development Corporation (CDC) is funding a low-income home designed and built by fourth- and fifth-year architecture students.

"The common thread throughout this design-build studio has been Eva Kultermann," Herman said.

In 1999 Kultermann started the first design-build studio for a Habitat-for-Humanity home on Fifth Street. According to Kultermann, at first students had the fall semester to design the house, then the spring to actually build the house. When the CDC agreed to sponsor the two houses on Mashburn Avenue, students completed the studio at a quicker pace, working this semester on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from approximately 12:30—5:30 p.m. and all day Saturday.

The studio was created with a desire "to avoid the abstraction of conventional studio conditions" in favor of what Kultermann calls "an applied experience."

In other words, building creates a hands-on experience from which students ideally may learn the fundamentals of design and practicalities and limitations of building on a budget.

"The frustrations and limitations-the incompleteness-of a conventional studio experience has led to a desire to build and to build within the protected confines of an academic environment," Kultermann said.

While a few years ago it may have been unique to find architecture students hanging sheet rock or plywood, Kultermann said that more and more programs are utilizing construction to teach their students about relationships with clients, subcontractors and city officials and how to turn abstract drawings into real spaces.

Last year's Mashburn house sits one house north and on higher ground of this year's construction. While the two houses are similar in size-1,300 to 1,200 square feet-this year's house has much more interior height and open space. It also has a unique exterior, not wood or aluminum siding, but Galvalum, a corrugated metal similar to The Laundry House or the Donald Roller Wilson house, both on Mountain Street near Uncle Gaylord's. Sliding panels will replace shutters, and the roof will be made of metal.

Inside the new house, the stairway heads up to a balcony overlooking the living room. Downstairs, fewer interior walls partition rooms like the living room and kitchen from one another. Whereas last year's design had a concrete block basement with three upstairs bedrooms, this year's house sits on a slab foundation and includes a master bedroom upstairs and two bedrooms downstairs.

Back at the studio in Vol Walker Hall sit two small-scale models representing what Herman describes as the "skeleton of the house." The models built by Brett Abbott of Ft. Smith, J.B. Mullins of Vilonia, Heiko Mueller of Cedarville and Carolynn Pike of Mountain Home, are in what used to be a grandiose reading room of the old library, now filled with student work stations, computers and saw dust.

"The bank's program dictates a lot of what we do," Herman said.

This program mimics a real-life scenario when architects often must work within time and money constraints. The project may teach students the importance of contributing to their community, rather than merely becoming masters of self-promotion. They may also learn to empathize with contractors and future homeowners and in the process learn the relationship between design, detailing and construction: for example, "Can a line ever again be drawn without some understanding that it represents far more than that mere line?" asks Kultermann.

According to Herman, the design-build studio diminishes ownership. While students each create their own designs, four drawings are chosen from those initial designs to be again tweaked and reimagined by another group of students and then presented to the CDC; this year their committee choose an amalgamation of two different designs.

In the process, original designers never work on their own project until the end. The final product, therefore, begins to take on another shape and form, as suggestions alter the original idea over and over. After the Bank of Fayetteville chooses the final designs, the students then take on specific roles similar to what is found on any construction site.

Pike, who works on the stairs and happens to be the only fourth-year student in the design-build studio, said, "When you actually put the house together, you understand architecture so much better."

She thinks that architecture students should be allowed to participate in the design-build studio earlier in their college career. Normally, the studio comprises only fifth-year architecture students, but Pike said she was studying in Rome last semester and happened to be exempt from some of the requirements for other fourth years.

Mark Hermann of DeQueen is the job superintendent responsible for overseeing the entire project, whereas Phillip Todd of Arkadelphia oversees the finances, and Josh Danish of Hindsville is the webmaster, planning to record all their hammering and nailing from a nearby web cam. Katie Hopkins of Fayetteville is partly responsible for estimating the original framing list, including things like studs, headers, joists and sheathing, while Cory Whalin of Cabot documents the project in detail with photographs, comparing a panorama of the site before ground breaking to its current condition.

Aaron Scott of Jonesboro and John Bredehoeft of Bentonville are ordering and measuring windows, while Deric Louton of Hot Springs is part of the logistics team also responsible for recycling and important accoutrements like a port-a-potty.

Davide Tinto, an exchange student from Rome, orders all the light fixtures and, according to Herman, can comment at length about the differences between American and Italian construction.

The students are scheduled to complete the house this spring.

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