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Of concrete and steel, campus partnerships forged
November 13, 2002 -- Brenda McDonald
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| MSU architecture students Joshua Sayer and Brandon Prinzing stand with Irving Elementary students Rick Simkins, Alia Sobrepena and Taylor McMullen on the new amphitheater. |
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Bozeman -- Children run and jump along the length of the new amphitheater at Irving Elementary School in Bozeman never realizing that those blocks of smoothed concrete and steel represent a partnership and a blue print for the future.
Four Montana State University upper division architecture students had an idea to take learning out of the classroom and build something that would last long beyond their years in college.
At the recent dedication of the new amphitheater, just a few streets away from the MSU campus, Irving principal Jim Bruggeman said that the MSU students could have been satisfied just making a model for their class. "But they came out here to us and did this community service."
"I hope all the children here today will take this as a lesson and some day be standing in that same spot doing community service," said MSU President Geoff Gamble.
Brandon Prinzing of Great Falls, Joshua Sayer of Billings, Casey Walker of Bozeman and Greg Hale of Boulder, Colo. were students in the Community Design Center at MSU last spring. Traditionally, the students work on projects that address a particular design issues in communities across the state and create models of their designs.
"We were tired of the conceptual," Prinzing said. "We wanted to build something that could impact someone."
"These four guys wanted to actually build something in the community, and they had some construction background and access to tools," said Ralph Johnson, director of the Community Design Center and MSU architecture professor.
Johnson told the students about the old wooden amphitheater structure that existed at the Irving School that had rotted away. "The school principal was interested in having the structure replaced," Johnson said.
The students met with the principal, the head of maintenance for the Bozeman School District and the Irving parent group to get a feel for the parameters for a new amphitheatre. They learned that the structure had to be big enough to accommodate 50 students, durable, maintenance free and not accessible for skateboarding.
"We had to be really conscious of safety risks when we created our design," Sayer said. "It couldn't be too high off the ground so that kids could crawl underneath it."
"We were frustrated initially with our design efforts, but we redesigned it and tried to make it better," Sayer said.
The principal of the Irving School, Bruggeman and the head of the Irving parent group Chris Thelen were impressed with the prospect of the structure, so much so that the parent group put $1,000 of their limited budget toward the project and Bruggeman dedicated $1,000 from the Irving building budget to the project and the school district contributed the final $1,000.
"We had to cooperate with each other in creating the design and everyone had different views," Prinzing said. "Agreeing on the design was the biggest challenge for us. But it ended up as collaboration. No one of us can say, 'that's mine.'"
The structure is a series of smooth concrete and steel blocks nestled in the school's native plants garden. The amphitheatre is also lighted at night and gives the illusion of "floating" off the ground.
Johnson said that the students took traditional function and traditional rules of thought and created the "unexpected."
The design of the structure took most of the spring semester. The Montana Conservation Corp. helped with the demolition of the old structure. When the ground became workable in the spring, the four architecture students braved days and nights of bitter cold and built the amphitheatre in a little over a month.
Sayer said that the experience was important because actually building something helps you learn to design. "We learned more on this project then we ever had before."
There were some frustrations along the way, a tile design element failed and the original color chosen to stain the structure didn't work out. "It started flaking off, but when we rubbed it off there was a nice color that we kept," Prinzing said.
"These students were very busy with their classes, but they hung in there and got the project done," Bruggeman said. "They were like 'dogs on a bone.' I was really impressed with their work ethic."
"It was our names on the line and we wanted to come through for the kids," said Prinzing.
The project was a community collaboration with assistance from Distinctive Lighting, Fantasia Tile, the Boys and Girls Club and the use of a truck from Prinzing's father.
Contact: Ralph Johnson (406) 994-4650
Hi-Resolution Image or PDF Available:
| [View or Download] | 1. | MSU architecture students Joshua Sayer and Brandon Prinzing stand with Irving Elementary students Rick Simkins, Alia Sobrepena and Taylor McMullen on the new amphitheater. |
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