Partnership Creates New Break-Out Lounge for DAAP Doctoral Students

During spring semester and over the summer, architecture and planning faculty and graduate students have worked together to create a new space specifically designed for doctoral students in the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP).

The new space, located in room 6477 of DAAP, contains specially designed and constructed lockers where students can store belongings; a kitchenette; millwork that can display ongoing student work and also supports coats and back-packs, and a 12-foot-long table with chairs.

According to Jim Postell, professor in the School of Architecture and Interior Design, “We didn’t have a dedicated space specifically for our doctoral students within the college. This space will allow the students to break away from classes for a time or come together in small groups for discussion, for a bite to eat or quiet time.”

The space was designed, constructed and funded thanks to a partnership between college leadership, including DAAP Dean Robert Probst; William Williams, director of the School of Architecture and Interior Design; Danilo Palazzo, director of the School of Planning; and by master’s  students enrolled in Postell’s spring semester design studio and his summer semester materials seminar course.

“For the students who helped to create and construct the design, the best part was that they got to see their efforts result in a real space that will be used by fellow students. They were able to take a design concept and drawings and transform those into a space where they had to consider how materials might react by expanding and contracting over time or how a finish might wear over time,” he explained, adding that the master’s students working on the project even had to do some welding in creating the custom latches for the specially designed storage spaces.

Final touches are now being made to complete the space, which will be ready for DAAP’s doctoral students by the start of the upcoming year.