Gloria Caulfield prepares okra and potatoes for lunch. Photo by George Long.

On Friday, May 24, Gloria Caulfield celebrated her 66th birthday by reopening her restaurant, Miss Gloria's Kitchen, which has been shuttered since Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans almost four years ago. Fay Jones School of Architecture faculty and students, with assistance from the CITYbuild Consortium of Schools hosted by Tulane University, developed design ideas and contributed a good deal of sweat equity to get Miss Gloria’s café up and running again. 

"Our students produced plans, elevations and a phased construction plan for the restaurant, and we've made three trips to New Orleans with students and faculty who were willing to roll up their sleeves and work very hard," said Greg Herman, an associate professor of architecture who led design work on the project. "Although the restaurant has not been rebuilt exactly to our students' design specifications, we view this as a successful service project."

Gloria Caulfield is enthusiastic about the students' design work: "Honey, it is remarkable," she said, the clatter of a busy kitchen audible through the phone. "The colors are gorgeous. Everybody who comes in admires how the place looks. It's got a whole new feeling."

Jared Hueter (B.Arch. '07) served as the New Orleans liaison during the spring '06 design studio, fundraising, trouble shooting and shepherding through a spot zoning change so Caulfield could operate a small business in a residential neighborhood. Hueter has stayed on in New Orleans as dean of the design program at the Priestley School, a charter school for architecture and construction, and has enjoyed several breakfasts at Miss Gloria's since the restaurant reopened.

"Miss Gloria's is really the living room for the community - you come in, stay, sit and talk," Jared Hueter said. "Everybody who walks in gives Miss Gloria a kiss on the cheek and tells her they're glad she's open. It's good to watch - and the food is good, too."

According to Caulfield, more than 40 people lined up for her home-cooked meals on the first day, and business have been picking up day by day. Herman is delighted by Caulfield's success: “Already Miss Gloria’s Kitchen is serving as a community focus; more than anything, that was our goal,” he said.  Although the business has re-opened, the project continues. "We would like to add shelving and built-in seating indoors, and seating and signage outdoors," Herman added.

Funding for the project has been provided by Polk Stanley Rowland Curzon Porter Architects Ltd., the religious school of Temple Shalom of Fayetteville and individuals in New Orleans and Fayetteville.

Russell Rudzinski and four architecture students will tour the U.S. this summer. Photo courtesy PDPhoto.org.

Ahh, summer sounds: the tinny ice cream truck music luring little kids to buy sweet treats, the slap/splash of a cannonball, the cheery din of crickets at night. Here at the Fay Jones School of Architecture it's eerily quiet in the summer months, in part because a number of our students and (brave) faculty members have hit the road as part of the school's international studies program.

This summer some bloggers have signed on to share their experiences with us:

A fourth-year student from Ft. Smith, Ark., Billy Fleming will be studying historic landscapes in Rome, Paris, and sites throughout England this summer as part of the landscape architecture department’s Summer European Field Studies program. Read Billy's travel blog.

For the past eight years Prof. Russell Rudzinski has headed south in May to direct the school's Mexico Summer Urban Studio. Not this year, though, thanks to the swine flu outbreak. Instead, Russell and four students will explore the greater United States in a Ford Econoline van. Check out their Stalking American Space blog.

Virginia Boyd, a recent graduate of the architecture program, talked with Ramay Junior High students about her fifth-year project. Photo by Jason Ivester, courtesy Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Just two days after walking across the Union ballroom stage to collect her B.Arch. degree, Virginia Boyd took 300 eighth- and ninth-grade math students at Ramay Junior High on a whirlwind tour of architecture. Fourth-year student Chase Pitner also helped sell the profession in a series of six presentations that stretched from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The architecture students brought models, plans and sketches to introduce the junior high students to some basic terms and the most important concept -- that they could be designers, too.

"Here's a house plan that I drew when I was 11 or 12," Boyd said. "My grandma would take me to Wal-Mart, give me $10 to spend, and I would buy house plan magazines." She chose to become an architect, she said, "because architecture combines my interest in art and math."

The architecture presentation built on a hands-on exercise in which the math students designed a simple, 2,000-square-foot house, then calculated the house's area, wall surface area, perimeter and volume in order to determine quantities of flooring, paint and other materials needed. Activities like this can be a beginning to a career in architecture, Boyd said.

"All of the formulas that we use in architecture school are based on stuff you learn in Algebra I," she told the students.

Boyd and Pitner shared projects that ranged from first-year spatial study models to master planning for Fayetteville's Walker Park, taking time to discuss their design ideas and how they realized them in AutoCAD. Boyd shared stories and photos from her semester in Rome, and Pitner talked about some of the other things you can do with an architecture degree.

"You aren't necessarily going to be designing houses," he said, pointing to a slide with a list of 17 occupations that included computer software design, contractor, historic preservation and engineering. "You can even go into product design -- Michael Graves designed toilet bowl brushes for Target," he said with a grin.

Following a tour of the models and hand-drawn graphics that they brought to Ramay, Boyd and Pitner closed with a Q & A session. By this time thoroughly engaged, the junior high kids asked a lot of specific questions: What tools do you use? What kind of classes do you take? What is studio like? When asked why he decided to become an architect, Chase Pitner replied that he decided to study architecture when he "realized how much architecture impacts daily life. Someone has designed your school, your home, the mall, the movie theater. Why not have fun creating these things? That's what inspires me, keeps me going."

Response from Ramay teachers and students was positive.

"They did an outstanding job, and our kids really enjoyed it," said Maridith Gebhart, a math teacher at Ramay who developed the house exercise. "We're so blessed to have the U of A in our backyard. Having our students and UA students partner together, that's huge."

For more information, read the press release.

 

This group of students studied in Rome in spring 2003.

We want to feature your stories and images in the next issue of Re:View magazine, coming to you in late August. Specifically, we're looking for:

Fay Stories If you studied architecture at the University of Arkansas anytime between 1946 and 1985, chances are you’ve got a story about Fay Jones  – we want to hear it! We're also interested in hearing from people who worked for Fay and from the lucky folks who live in a home designed by Fay.  If you love one of his buildings, tell us why. Send your story to Kendall Curlee and it may be published in next issue of Re:View (some editing for length and/or clarity may be necessary).

Rome pix This year marks the 20th anniversary of our Rome Study Center. To celebrate, we've interviewed Davide Vitali, director of the program since its inception.  We would like to illustrate the piece with your photos (and your work, if available). Postcards, menus, coasters with architectural scribbles and other ephemera also encouraged. Send high res (at least 300 dpi) .jpg or .tif files to Kendall Curlee. Or mail original photos and/or artwork to Kendall at 120 Vol Walker Hall, Fayetteville, AR 72701. We promise to get them back to you unscathed!

Your news We want to hear about projects built, awards won, degrees earned. Been laid off? You are not alone. Tell us about the day job you've taken to pay the bills.

Alumnus Stuart Fulbright (left) and Prof. Carl Smith refine the latest evolution of Starseeds, an art installation on Old Main lawn. Photo by Chris Bray.

Starseeds, an environmental art installation on the front lawn of Old Main, is featured in the May issue of Landscape Architecture magazine and and will be noted in the June issue of Sculpture magazine. Starseeds was designed by Carl Smith, an assistant professor of landscape architecture, and Stuart Fulbright (B.L.A. '06), and constructed with the help of students and faculty in the landscape architecture, mathematics and art departments.

Professor Marlon Blackwell's Gentry Library renovation project was featured in Metropolitan Home's May Design 100 issue, which features "the year's 100 best objects, projects, people, places and things in the world of home design." Blackwell's transformation of the Fulbright building from outdated library facility to sleek office spaces will be featured in the June issue of Architectural Record.

Alumni Jared Hueter (B.Arch. '07), Adam Crosson (B.Arch. '08) and Stephen Borengasser (B.Arch. '08) are part of the team leading New Orleans' Priestley School of Architecture and Construction into a new era. The school's curriculum and ongoing efforts to raise funds to renovate the historic Alfred C. Priestley Junior High are discussed in the "Record News" section of the May issue of Architectural Record. Priestley, whose student population is 99% African American,  is also discussed in "The Diversity Pipeline," a feature article in the May issue of Record that focuses on design-centered high schools that are helping to diversify the design profession.

Charlotte Taylor, the school's director of development, her husband Tim Hudson and their two sons are featured in the May issue of Family Circle magazine.  Fayetteville's farmers' market, the Friday Happy Hour at George's Majestic Lounge and of course, the Hogs are some of their bragging points in a "My Hometown" feature on Fayetteville, Ark.

The Class of 2009 celebrates on the steps of Vol Walker Hall. Photo by John Hickey.

It's a tough time to enter the real world. In an informal survey of the Class of '09 just before they walked across the commencement stage, only eight students reported landing design jobs.  Some students found work in related fields (graphic design, teaching English) while one student is quite literally working outside of the box: Cole Forst has joined Wal-Mart's sustainable product development team, which is retrofitting product lines to reduce waste. Graduate school is looking good for a number of our graduates, but the majority of them are looking for internships.

The school's web site is designed to support networking. Here's how:

1. Enter your firm in our firm directory.

2. Post your opening to our jobs page.

3. Students and alumni may post links to their web site or online portfolio to the school web site's Jobs and Internships page (contact Kendall Curlee, below).

4. You can also find us on Facebook.

Problems/questions? Email Kendall Curlee or call her at 479/575-4704.