[Vision2020] Architecture Student Designs for Legacy Crossing on Display June 13

[Tom Hansen]

>From UI's "Today at Idaho" website at:

http://www.today.uidaho.edu/details.aspx?id=4403

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Architecture Student Designs for Legacy Crossing on Display June 13

MOSCOW, Idaho – The removal of the empty, rundown buildings and silos on 
Sixth Street in downtown Moscow, where the new Moscow Urban Renewal 
project is slated to be, was anticipated by many.

For one University of Idaho professor it was different, and he used his 
experiences as a learning tool for his students. 

"Walking back and forth from school and home, I thought 'what a shame that 
these evocative structures are being removed,'" said Randall Teal, 
assistant professor of architecture.

Whatever is built there will have a huge impact on Moscow and the 
university, Teal said about the emptying lots. He hopes it will be 
positive.

To help influence positive growth, Teal created a project for his fourth 
year architecture students. His class spent an entire semester 
understanding the site and designing spaces that the community and the 
university would enjoy. The semester culminated with presentations of the 
designs to the Moscow City Council in May.

“To become familiar with the site, we started with more artistic works to 
allow our thoughts to be freely expressed, not methodically confined as 
the design phase can be,” said Nicole Calzacorta , a senior in 
architecture and interior design. 

Those artistic works led to the creation of specific ideas for 
redeveloping the old agricultural industrial site between campus and 
downtown. Fifteen students each designed two projects for a mix of plans 
and rendered project views. 

"We focused only on the site between downtown and the university," said 
Teal. "I had each student work alone with the intention of developing a 
range of possibilities. From this, each student then focused on one small 
location and developed it as well."

"By selecting one of the proposed building footprints and developing it 
into an actual building that would address how it integrates into the 
community on a site, city and regional level, I developed my design for a 
concert hall," said Calzacorta.

Erik Hatch, now an architecture graduate student, created plans for a 
parking garage. "Both Moscow and the university are in desperate need of 
parking, but the cookie-cutter replicated parking garage is not what is at 
the heart of Moscow’s sense of place," he said.

“Designing for a smaller community can be just as challenging as a big 
city design,” Hatch said. “There are just as many important design and 
human considerations in our teeny tiny Moscow as any place on the planet.” 

Hatch has worked on the design for a hospital in Reno, Nev. He currently 
is working on an addition to the University of California Davis medical 
center near Sacramento, Calif.

“The City Council liked how many of the designs responded to the spirit of 
this place,” Teal said. 

The student's proposed designs, among others submitted to the Moscow City 
Council, will be on exhibit Friday, June 13 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in City 
Hall as part of Art Walk. A smaller selection of designs will remain on 
display through Friday, June 20. The Moscow City Hall is located at 206 
East Third St. 

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Seeya at Farmers' Market, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students. The college 
students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."

- Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)


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