Design students will have the chance to work together to create a design for the American Embassy in Tunisia as a part of the School of Landscape Architecture’s “Design Week.”
Suzanne Turner, School of Landscape interim director, said the landscape students are participating in a “vertical studio,” which means all levels will interact to work on the project, rather than grouping by year.
“It gives them a chance to meet other students from the other years,” Turner said. “They get to run themselves, set up their own schedules.”
The finished projects will not be used, but students will be graded by the faculty Friday.
Turner said the project also will give students a chance to work on a real deadline with others who may not see eye-to-eye on the same ideas.
“They can work on their strengths and weaknesses, whether it’s graphics or writing,” Turner said. “This is a part of how we work professionally in a firm.”
The students seemed to agree the week will give them the opportunity to interact with everyone on a more formal level.
“In a business atmosphere, you’re always working in teams,” said Byron Pogue, a landscape architecture senior.
Along with assigning the project, the school has invited Carol Johnson to speak to students about her career and experience in the landscape field.
Johnson, founder and chairperson of the Board of Carol R. Johnson Associates, Inc., in Boston, will talk to students about how her travels have shaped her designing techniques.
Turner said having such a prominent figure in landscape design at the school will benefit students.
“Bringing in someone so eminent in landscape architecture gives [students] a chance to work with a very experienced and accomplished practitioner,” she said. “It also gives us access to projects like this. Carol had to get a release from the government in Tunisia for this [design project].”
Johnson is the 2003 recipient of this year’s Robert S. Reich professorship, a program honoring the 90-year-old landscape professor who still teaches at the University.
Johnson has received numerous awards in landscape design, including the American Society of Landscape Architects’ Medal in 1998, the society’s highest honor and a Gold Medal from the Massachusetts Horticulture Society in 2000.
Johnson will give a lecture tonight titled “Carol R. Johnson: Autobiographical Travelogue for Landscape Architecture,” in Room 103 Design Building at 7 p.m. for anyone who is interested.