School of architecture is more than just a building

Architect said students should learn from communities and work to enhance them

by XOCHITL CAMPOS

It stands four stories high on one of Albuquerque’s busiest streets.

It was built to reflect the landscape of New Mexico, the history of the people and to nurture the promise of tomorrow’s ingenuity.

It has made its designer proud.

Photo courtesy of Gabbi Campos

The design of George Pearl Hall was made to reflect pueblo architecture.

The University of New Mexico's School of Architecture and Planning, George Pearl Hall, was built to give to its users and cultivate the potential of all students, architect Antoine Predock said.

“Architecture needs to respond to place in a really specific way, and each place is different,” he said.

Predock said Pearl Hall was not merely designed to complement Central Avenue or the University of New Mexico. It was built to foster the creativity of its students, Predock said.

“The building has a major structural purpose in terms of its composition,” he said. “So when a student enters the building, everything is exposed. Everything about the building is raw, just exactly as it was constructed, so students can look around the building and learn. They are learning about it for their daily lives.”

The lights are always on in the architecture building, Predock said. Students are always working to develop new ideas and concepts in the building designed to be a communication facilitator between one architecture discipline to another.

The field of architecture is demanding of your time, sanity and money but worth it when it comes to the final result, Chris Flynn said.

He sits behind a desk piled high with the papers, building plans and tools he needs to create models for his assignments. As an architecture student Flynn has 24-hour access to Pearl Hall, and he needs it, most architecture students do, he said.

Flynn said it is not uncommon for architecture students to work late into the night.

The building that formerly housed the architecture students gave them more freedom, to work without interruption from other students or faculty, by the nature of its narrow design. But the new building has its advantages, he said.

“It was a nice building because we had a lot more freedom,” he said. “But this is a whole different atmosphere because we were cut off from the graduates. It is a lot more of a community learning, now that we are here.”

In the past, students never had the advantage of communicating with architecture students of a different discipline, graduate student Kristina Guist said.

“It really enforces the multi-discipline reality that landscape and architecture really is,” she said. “In the real world, one really does not work without the other. It creates awareness and respect for the other disciplines.”

Before Pearl Hall opened on Jan. 20 students in the department roved the streets of Central Avenue, Roger Schluntz, dean of architecture and planning said.

“Since the creation of the school, we had been on the south side of Central Avenue in adapted business facilities the University had acquired, and in three different buildings simultaneously,” he said. “So for one we never really felt we were truly apart of the University. And two we didn’t feel like we had a real identity. Three, we felt like there was really no sense of community.”

Photo courtesy of Gabbi Campos

The entrance, looking up, to George Pearl Hall

So when the time came to design a building that would finally house the entire department, Schluntz said there was a long list of criteria the potential architect would have to meet.

“We told all of the architects that we wanted a building that would be very open, and by its design would help inform all the users, faculty and students about the activities of the other users,” he said. “We wanted a building that in itself would teach.”

The building had to emphasize the values of structural and mechanical space that were taught to students in the department, Schluntz said.

Like any good teacher, the building would have to be accessible to all students, he said.

“The idea was that this could be a gateway point to the university,” he said. “This would be a gateway, and simultaneously, a building with identity appropriate for a school of design and planning.”

Though Pearl Hall was created to meet historical qualities expected by the University it was not built to imitate buildings like Ortega or Scholes, Schluntz said. Pearl Hall was made to be different and to encourage the creativity of the students, faculty and staff who use it.

“The essence is really the power of design to support and improve expected human functions,” he said. “The building responds to how we teach and how students learn. How staff and faculty work together.”

Students work to get assignments in on time but more than learning about the mechanics of a building a student should learn the mechanics of a place, Predock said.

Students, like Flynn, who have made Pearl Hall their second home work to get their assignments in on time and pass their classes. But Predock said he hopes they leave the school of architecture and planning with something else.

He said an architect’s first responsibility is to enhance the area where they build their creation. Predock said students should view their roles as designers as a way to better a community by enhancing its landscape.

“Globalization is like a buzzword, but with architecture, what globalization generally does is transplant a western model to a third-world country. I think that is so dead wrong,” he said. “It is key that architects first honor the place and honor the people and not just bring some building and plop it down not using architecture to enrich life.”

Written May 1, 2008

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