Sketch #4

Thoughts on Boxes and Other Things

When I was in graduate school I learned many things. Some of them were unintended....

Since I already had an undergraduate degree in Architectural Design, I decided that if I was going to go back to school, I should do something a bit different. I enrolled in a Master’s of Science program at Arizona State University. An M.S. program requires you to do research. Scientific research! But, having a background in biology and being accustomed to running high school experiments in my bacteriology and genetics classes, I thought, “OK; I can do this!”

It may be difficult to believe now, but at the time Arizona State was only one of a handful of colleges that offered any kind of architecture program that emphasized energy-efficient design. Preferring the Southwest to schools in Oregon or Ohio, I applied at ASU.

And so, like other artists, prophets, and madmen before me, I headed off to the desert.

Once there I was overwhelmed by the dramatically different environment: the sky wasn’t an overcast blue; it was a cloudless, blinding white! The land wasn’t green; it was orange! Everything in this upside-down environment seemed to be the opposite of what I had previously known.

Thinking along the lines of “when in Rome”, since I was in Arizona I decided that my thesis should involve some aspect of the thousands of prehistoric Native American sites that extend, quite literally, all across the entire southwestern United States. As I drilled down deeper into what characterized these monuments to an extensive past culture, it was their use of thick, earthen walls that peaked my curiosity the most.

So, I began to read.

My apartment didn't have A/C, just an evaporative cooler-- a ridiculously simple device that uses water to cool the dry desert air and blow it into the room. It works during most of the year, but unfortunately during the annual "monsoon season", when humidity levels in the desert are at their highest, evaporative coolers stop working and just blow hot air.... The cool comfort of the Architecture library at ASU offered relief from the intense heat of the Arizona sun, and it was there that I scoured over everything I could find relating to Pueblo Indian culture. Using earth-sheltering below ground or (conversely) massive earth walls above ground has been an age-old  thermal modification strategy employed by earlier cultures all across the globe, from China, to Africa, to American Southwest.  In fact, many ancient cultures at some point in their development utilized earth-coupling or thick walls to moderate indoor temperatures.

I knew what I would research: the gradual evolution of Pueblo Indian structures from simple pit houses, to freestanding masonry rooms, followed by complex, multi-storied pueblos, and ultimately cliff dwellings like those at Mesa Verde. I proposed studying prehistoric archeological sites using advanced computer software to study energy-efficiency as a motive for the evolution of puebloan building typologies.

My architecture thesis was unusual to say the least.   I soon found out that there were those who didn’t think I was studying architecture at all. Fellow students in the program informed me bluntly that what I was studying wasn't "real" architecture and I should find something more "acceptable".

Fortunately, the instructor I chose as my Thesis Chair, Prof. Jeffrey Cook, had written extensively on the architecture of Southwestrn Indian tribes and Native American architecture. Jeff shared my interest in Native American buildings and had made them the focus of his long academic career. Although he disagreed with my hypothesis that the structural changes in materials and building form were the result of their inhabitants’ growing awareness of the basic thermal benefits of using mass in their construction, to his credit, Jeff gave me the encouragement and support I needed.

Since three professors were required for my Thesis Committee, I selected another based on his knowledge of the computer software I would be using (despite his indifference to my hypothesis. For the third, I headed off to the Department of Anthropology to find a professor who had experience with Native American construction.

I soon found that the Anthropologist I spoke with— although very familiar with studies of Pueblo Indian architecture— was uninterested in being a member of my committee, telling me, “You’re not studying this the way that we would.”

I walked out of the Anthropology building and across the wide plaza that separated it from the College of Architecture.  I looked up at my own building and at the other colleges around me. At that moment, it occurred to me that each department was separated from one another not only ideologically, but physically as well.    

I saw the rectilinear shapes of each building as multi-storied boxes housing students focused on learning only in “acceptable ways”. It occurred to me that each college was in its own box, separated from all of the other boxes by wide plazas and artfully located landscaping. There might as well have moats and draw bridges….

The irony of my epiphany was not lost on me: that schools encourage their students to “think outside of the box”, but in practice rarely encourage students from pursuing cross-disciplinary communication.

“Stay in your box” was the implicit message I had received, and it’s a message that’s reinforced both by the majority of campus layouts and individual building designs made by architects who, despite providing each college a box with its own, distinctive identity, are still just making more boxes....

So, I returned to the library.

After perusing the enormous portfolios of visionary local architect Paolo Soleri, I began to sketch out ideas for another type of university campus. One without boxes separated by wide plazas and even wider biases. Instead, my campus was characterized by curved, circular shapes that overlapped and intersected. The design would take into account the constant temperatures of cooler underground conditions as well as the sun’s position and seasonal differences in solar angles.

Individual floors stepped down in multiple levels descending below ground, seeking relief from the desert heat in a series of cascading, concentric rings where continuous terraces with draping plants terminated at the bottom in quiet, shaded patio spaces next to shallow pools of cooling water.

In my sketches the lines separating one college from the next had been removed. Instead of a series of separate, above-ground "boxes" for each college, there was a continuous series of interconnected walkways below ground leading to the large, curved, concentric terraces dropping several stories below grade. Modern angular steel and glass skylights at ground level doubled as stairwells and entry points, bringing not only students but also natural light into the spaces below. 

In the university campus I imagined, a complex, continuous, and overlapping series of curved and interconnected SPACES had replaced segregated, boxy buildings as the prevailing collegiate typology.  Students couldn’t “stay in their boxes” because there weren't any "boxes"-- just a series of below-ground, interconnected spaces !

The epiphany that I experienced while walking between college buildings that day led me to imagine a unique college campus in the desert that was more interactive, sustainable, and non-hierarchical. It could not only replace the standard design of university campus planning, but (more importantly) encourage the kind of scholastic collaborations and research that can lead to significant scientific and cultural breakthroughs. Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist-- at least not yet…

If I hadn't had that epiphany, where I experienced each college department as a separate "box" isolated from others, I probably never would have imagined a different kind of college campus: one with a series of below ground, earth-sheltered spaces that are ideal for desert locations, and one whose interconnected spaces would facilitate academic cross pollination between both students and faculty. Grad school taught me something else: sometimes the most valuable lessons aren't those your instructors intend; they're the lessons you teach yourself.