Road Trip Course in Southwest Accelerates Student Learning

A small group of students from the University of Cincinnati’s top-ranked architecture and interior design programs are spending spring quarter far from their Midwestern classrooms.

Instead, the ten undergraduates and their professor, David Saile, are caravanning throughout the American Southwest, studying the region as a crucible of cultural histories and architecture over the past two millennia. 

Officially titled “Architectures and Spaces of the Southwest,” the mobile class includes visits to studios of working architects; workshops with archaeology, ecology, building technology, culture, community development and history experts; visits to Native American settlements, archaeological ruins as well as visits to prototypical urban structures and environments.  Camping stays are also planned for the study of desert, mountain and plateau landscapes.

During this quarter, students in the course – all from the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning – will send back updates and images detailing their experiences.  Below is the first report, from architecture student Eric Stear:

April 9, 2005

Upon realizing that Tucson is only four hours from the Gulf of California in Mexico, a group of eight students took a weekend trip to Puerto Penasco, Mexico, and nearby Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Arizona. We arrived at Organ Pipe Cactus NM in the early afternoon, set up camp, and then loaded back in the cars to cross the Mexican border and travel to Puerto Penasco for the evening. Although the city of Puerto Penasco is becoming Americanized by the influx of new resort hotels, we were still able to find a great place to eat and a great beach to watch the sunset.

April 10, 2005

The day started early as we all decided to wake up in time to watch the sunrise. After breakfast we tore down our camp site and spent the rest of the day hiking in Arch Canyon. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument has an extraordinary collection of plants and animals of the sonoran Desert. The monument is a showcase for creatures who have adapted to the extreme temperatures, intense sun, and little rainfall that characterize the Southwest. The organ pipe cactus is a large cactus rarely found in the United States, although it is common in Mexico. 

April 13, 2005

We had a midweek trip to a museum in the Ak-Chin Indian Reservation. Unlike most museums that try to attract tourism, the Ak-Chin Him-Dak Museum's mission was to educate people with.

Our studio project this quarter is to design a Southwest Interpretive Center, so the insights that were gained at the Him-Dak Museum will be very helpful throughout the quarter.

From the Ak-Chin Reservation we traveled to Casa Grande Ruins National Monument in Coolidge, Arizona. Four stories high and 60 feet long, Casa Grande is the largest structure known to exist from Hohokam times. The exact purpose of Casa Grande is unknown; however its walls face the four cardinal points of the compass. A circular hole in the upper west wall aligns with the setting sun during the summer solstice. Other openings also align with the sun and moon at specific times.

After Casa Grande we traveled to Catalina State Park near Tucson for our first camping outing with all members of the group. This served as a practice camp for later in the trip when we will be camping for several consecutive nights during our two week travel period.

April 14, 2005
The practice camp was a success. After breakfast half of the group returned to our apartments in Tucson while the other half stayed at Catalina State Park to check out the park's hiking trails. The wide, sandy trails near the trailhead quickly turned to narrower, rocky paths as we hiked up Romero Canyon. Our journey up the canyon ended at a lookout high above the Romero Pools.