Students Build Bamboo History Lesson

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Students aged 13 to 16 are developing a broad view of what constitutes architecture, from primitive huts to Fay Jones’ Cooper Chapel, in a course offered by the GT Scholars Summer Institute on the University of Arkansas campus. The students have visited buildings designed by the late Fay Jones, School of Architecture alumnus and professor emeritus; toured the local office of Polk Stanley Rowland Curzon Porter Architects, Ltd.; and sketched landscapes and buildings throughout Fayetteville. They have also peered back into history to imagine the very earliest structures designed by man.

“They have explored the myth of the primitive hut and projected their own ideas of the earliest homes by developing scale models,” said Greg Herman, an associate professor of architecture who is leading the course.

On Monday, July 25, the students will select the best design and erect a full-scale bamboo hut that expresses their concept of the earliest origins of Western architecture. The action will take place Monday, July 25, from 9:30 — 11:30 a.m. in Vol Walker Hall on the University of Arkansas campus.