Architecture Class Meets and Works Underwater

In the architecture profession, a “site visit” is when an architect visits the specific location where a building is to be placed. Such visits are common.

So, for students in the University of Cincinnati’s nationally ranked architecture program, it seems reasonable to make ongoing site visits to underwater locations since they are currently designing underwater structures for an international competition.

Seven UC design students first went on an underwater site visit on July 1, scuba diving in the university’s Olympic-sized lap pool. They’ll return to the bottom of that pool three more times in July, where they’ll try to set up a rudimentary net-and-metal “house” frame. Finally, they’ll scuba dive in an Indiana rock quarry.

It’s all part of a new Extreme Environments design course. The point of the underwater exercises is the same as that for any site visit: to first experience an environment and then design for it, according to Brian Davies, associate professor of architecture in UC’s internationally ranked College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.

Practical and fun but very cold
“It’s practical,” said Sarah Smith, 22, a second-year architecture student from Mariemont, adding, “It’s just like our co-op work experiences. It’s balancing theory with research.”

“Well,” she admitted, “this is also more fun.”

Except, perhaps, for the extreme cold she felt about a half-hour into her first few hours in the pool: “The first time in the pool, I was struck by the buoyancy. I’ll have to consider how that will affect a structure. And the cold too will affect the structure and the people using it. I found that my body temperature quickly and dramatically dropped.”

Underwater architecture is an emerging specialty
There are a lot of lessons to be learned, according to fellow student Larisa Forester, 22, a fourth-year architecture student from Indianapolis.

She explained, “You have to have an idea of what you’re designing for: the conditions, how construction would have to take place, materials and how well they hold up underwater. Underwater architecture is becoming a specialty. There’s already an operating hotel built underwater off the coast of Key Largo in Florida. Several others are in the planning or construction phases.”

Realizing a vision from Jules Verne
For third-year architecture student John Sebastian, 22, of Kings Mills, the Extreme Environments course and the assignment to design an underwater structure is like participating in the vision of the future as promulgated more than 100 years ago by novelist Jules Verne in the classic “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.”

“His vision is happening now, and it will continue to develop. We get to experience a little of that vision through our project,” said Sebastian.

He added, “We’ll be better designers in this project because we’ll physically experience the stress placed on the human body underwater… the cold and the greater effort to conduct work [when submerged].”

The UC Extreme Environments design course runs through this summer. In August, the students will submit designs to France’s “Archipelaego” competition in an effort to win the “Jacques Rougerie Architecture of the Sea Award.”

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