t Arts Page 8 Daily Nebraskan Wednesday, February 28,2001 Architecture Hall The Final Years Fifth-, sixth-year students prepare in spacious setting BY CHRIS JACOBS If third-year UNL architecture students dwell in the pit of Architecture Hall, fifth- and sixth-year stu dents live in the attic. They earn their way up there, gaining more space and even a few windows here and there. They seem more relaxed and laid-back, yet much like their younger brothers and sisters, they con tribute large amounts of work to the architecture fam ily. The same story: No sleep. No consistent meals. Projects with a multitude of conclusions. But the University of Nebraska-Lincoln fifth- and sixth-year students look healthier and don’t seem as high strung. There are a number of explanations. The attic, separated into fifth- and sixth-year sections, is spa cious. There is enough room for each student to cre ate his or her own home. They have couches and chairs. By die fifth year, the students have figured out that it's easier to take a coffee break if you have your own coffee maker right next to you. By the sixth, there’s a student-run store - yes, a store - where students can buy a can of beef stew or a computer disk by leaving a few dollars in a can. They have dividers between each work space. If they want to, they can exclude "There is hardly themselves from anything is this state SkT* this* that’s considered boards. They decent architecture. There’s the crap that’s little home. being built across the . ^'FFFJ*16 ^ . benefits of their street (the Embassy own hard work: Suites). People Romantic. perceive that as On giVen to the sm wdw that's great; it’s a dents, however, nice building’ when mo^ comfon* actually it's doing a able. The jumps disservice to the b*T*^ond architecture business." year, abstract art projects are Robert Shafer assigned,, said UNL architecture student jixth'yef5 s.tu‘ - dent Maxine Karam. In the third, it’s more focused practical-room issues. “They sort of throw you in there without really knowing anything,” die said. Robert Shafer, another sixth-year student who works in the attic next to Karam, said the program became more focused from the fourth year on. “You do detailed models like one-half scaled models,” Shafer said. “You do light fixtures. You do carpet You do walls. You can even put in furniture. “I’m designing a hand-rail right now. It gets down to that I’m designing a hand rail that’s based on how you actually hold onto it I don’t even have the whole building, yet I’m designing a hand rail. You come across these little details, you write them down and you end up putting them in there somehow.” Sixth-year architecture students are given the lib erty to choose their own final projects. They have the entire year to finish them, working in conjunction with a professor. Karam said there were about three students for every one professor. Though the workload may become more person al, the amount of time spent working on the projects stays the same. The graduate students, however, seem to have better methods for using their time. “I think there's a stronger need for time manage ment," said Joel Pehrson, a sixth-year student from Lincoln. “In the earlier years, because you’re younger, you tend to stay up later. You can go until three or four in the morning and bum that oil “As you get into the graduate level, you become more professional. A lot of students get here earlier and go to sleep around 11 or 12. You learn from the experience of pulling all-nighters. Your work, as far as quality of work, is better if you go home and just get Derek Lippincott/DN Fifth-year architecture students work on designs and models for a parking garage near Memorial Stadium. four or five hours of sleep.” Pehrson, who’s working on a hypothetical project for a non-traditional art school in urban St Louis, said he hadn’t pulled an all-nighter in two years. Shafer and Karam both agreed all-nighters weren’t necessary, but the program still required extensive hours. Said Shafer “I get up in the morning. I come here. I work until dinner time. I go home, eat and come back. I work until one o’clock in the morning. I go home and go to bed. Wake up in the morning...” Karam, whose project involves a renovation of Whittier Junior High School at 22nd and Vine streets into a student apartment complex, said it was advan tageous to spend time at Architecture Hall. “For you to do your homework, you have to be here,” she said. “So you could be at home, but then you wouldn't get feedback from people because you're not here.” Shafer painted a more poetic portrait of his task as an architecture student “It’s like an artist,” he said. "An artist can wake up in the middle of the night and think about stuff. It’s the same thing here. “If you don’t love it, get the hell out. If you don’t love it and you’re not willing to be here all the time, then I don’t think you have enough passion to do it, and you should leave.” Fifth- and sixth-year students also said their pri vate lives were dominated by the program. Nick Schulz, a fifth-year architecture student, said it could be hard to relate with students outside the college. “You don’t have much to talk about (with other friends),” said Schulz, who’s engaged. “‘So how’s stu dio?’ ‘Well, I did this and this’... ‘That sucks.’ “You have your own private conversations with (the people in your studio) because they know what you’re going through. If you try and explain it to out side people, it’s like talking gibberish because they don’t understand you. “You have to have very understanding girlfriends and boyfriends. The only time I see my fiancee is when she’s in bed sleeping.” Karam said she didn’t really have friends outside the college, and Shafer said he grew close to others because he slept at Architecture Hall every day of the week during his fourth year in the program, rather than commute each day from Omaha. “I went home on Friday night and Saturday,” Shafer said. “Other than that, I slept in a cot, brought my clothes down and took showers at the Rec Center.” Many students expressed diversity within the program. During graduate school, each student must take an elective outside of the college, said Pehrson, who took life drawing class to expand his interest in art Karam said many students took filmmaking class es. The majority of the fifth- and sixth-year students have had experience studying abroad, much different than in Nebraska. Said Shafer "There is hardly anything in this state that’s considered decent architecture. There’s the crap that’s being built across the street (the Embassy Suites). People perceive that as ‘Oh wow that’s great; it’s a nice building’ when actually it’s doing a disserv ice to the architecture business. It takes their ability to recognize good architecture, and it brings it down a level. “They take Embassy Suites, with what we refer to Derek Uppincott/DN Robert Shafer, a sixth-year architecture student works on a model in the sixth-year studio.The sixth-year studio, the most spa cious at Architecture Hall, was once the building's attic Derek Lippincott/DN Ryan Pavlik, a fifth-year architecture student, works on his laptop computer late at night at Architecture Hall."When I'm feeling slow, I just drink a pot of coffee," he said. as rubber stamping, and put it here and there and this state and that state. The aesthetics are always the same. They have nothing to do with the surround ings.” Corey Hoelker, a second-year graduate student in architecture, said the program could be closed in its effort to extend to a diverse curriculum. “They have a really restricted curriculum that you have to follow in order to graduate with a degree,” Hoelker said. "So you find yourself taking classes with the same 45 people. In that sense, I feel like we’re living in a glass box. “It’s good in that it helps gain the technical knowl edge and really gets into the issues of architecture in depth with the people you’re comfortable around. But after taking a 900-level English class, I see how that doesn’t allow us to be diverse here. There doesn't seem to be as much openness to different things. It makes for some isolation.” The struggle for absolute diversity is understand able. The college does require a lot out of the students. Does it really have room for outside curriculum? It's hard to tell. Nevertheless the strength of this program cannot be denied. Students work as hard, if not harder as is suggested, in this program than students in any other. They fight deadlines. They can be weeded out They don’t sleep. What more can you really ask? Dave Matthews Band discovers a new sound with 'Everyday' CD miutii Aiipniflpwn _