Midwest Students Dive into Architecture While Driving the Southwest

The American Southwest has been a cultural – and architectural – crossroads for the past two millennia.  That being the case, it’s the perfect destination for ten University of Cincinnati students who are caravanning through the region for the ten weeks of spring quarter, all part of a course titled “Architectures and Spaces of the Southwest” led by David Saile of UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.

Encompassing city and canyon, the

architecture and interior design

students’ class-on-wheels includes visits to the studios of working architects; workshops with archaeology, ecology, building technology, culture, community development and history faculty and experts in New Mexico and Arizona; visits to museums, Native American settlements, archaeological ruins as well as visits to unique urban structures and environments – not to mention camping stays for the study of desert, mountain and plateau landscapes.

During this quarter, students in the course are sending back updates and images detailing their experiences.  Below is the second report from architecture student Eric Stear:

April 22, 2005

After spending an afternoon on the Arizona State University campus, all ten students set off on a weekend trip that started with a night in Las Vegas. We walked up and down Las Vegas Boulevard taking in the sights and sounds of The Strip at night, while learning as much as possible about the architecture that is so unique to the extravagant hotels and casinos of Las Vegas.

April 23, 2005

Half of the group woke up early and drove to Zion National Park in southern Utah, while the other half stayed close to Las Vegas. The group that stayed in Las Vegas spent most of the day touring nearby Hoover Dam and enjoying the beautiful landscapes of the region and then camped in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

April 24, 2005
The group that left for Zion National Park arrived at the park early yesterday afternoon and backpacked up the 7.5 mile Kolob Canyon along La Verkin Creek. The "creek" could more accurately be described as a "river" due to recent heavy snow-melt and rainstorms. In order to reach our backcountry campsite, we had to cross the creek a couple of times and consequently ended up with some wet gear. At the end of the canyon, we found ourselves standing under Kolob Arch, the largest known freestanding arch in the United States. After exiting Kolob Canyon we drove through the rest of Zion National Park and continued on to the Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness Area to camp near the trail head of the slot canyons that we would be day hiking the following day.

April 25, 2005

Several strong rainstorms blew through our campsite in the night, but fortunately the slot canyons had dried out enough by morning for a short hike. Our route took us through Wire Pass, a two mile slot canyon that flows into the longest and deepest slot canyon in the country, Buckskin Gulch.

April 26, 2005
The group traveled two hours southeast of Tucson to Bisbee, AZ. We were interested in studying the vernacular architecture of this old copper-mining town that flourished at the turn of the 20th century. We went atop "Castle Rock," a rock formation that rises from the middle of the village.

To read Eric’s first report on the road-trip course, go to http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.asp?id=2644