Architecture Students Learn Nuts-and-Bolts Lessons

A colander for a head, a hinge for the elbow, a ball bearing for the shoulder or an entire body fashioned from junk food containers will be just a few of the features sported by "self-portrait robots" made by about 120 first-year University of Cincinnati architecture and interior design students. 

The students will display their life-size self-images made from wood, metal, garbage, old appliance parts, kitchen utensils, hardware parts, blinds, food, sports equipment and more from

noon-1 p.m. Monday, Feb. 10

, along the main staircase in UC's

College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning

.  About 120 such robots will go on display in all.

In the unusual assignment, beginning design students are learning to look at themselves and the world around them with a critical eye.  "In design, it's important to make connections in new ways between people and what they use, including buildings.  It's also important to represent yourself in and through your work.  This is a tongue-in-cheek way to bring those lessons home," explained David Lee Smith, professor of architecture.

Student Stephanie Doering of Delhi is forming her self-portrait robot entirely from junk food packaging, a way to represent her love of unhealthy food.  Eating even as she constructed her robot, Doering displayed her robot's claw-like hands with its curving fingers made from (as yet uneaten) Tootsie Rolls and palms made from Three Musketeers Bars.  The legs of her robot are made from empty 2-liter bottles with a midriff composed from the box that once contained a large ice-cream cake…all items that Doering said she consumed in a little over a week.  She'll top her robot off with a hamster-wheel head, with the hamster running inside during the exhibit.

In contrast, Roula Constantine's robot looks much more human with an artistically drawn face and dyed mop-head hair -- all topped by a ski cap.  The body of chicken wire is partly draped in old clothes and curtains to represent Constantine's love of fashion.  "The most challenging thing," said Constantine, who lives in West Chester, "is really getting the robot to match your body shape and look.  You also have technical challenges because you have to have stronger supports where the body is going to rest against the ground, whether as a seated figure or a standing one."

Leading the freshman architecture and interior design students in this project are Smith along with Dennis Mann, professor of architecture; Katherine McCormick, visiting assistant professor of architecture; Jim Postell, associate professor of interior design; Marc Swackhamer, assistant professor of architecture; and Melanie Swick, adjunct professor of architecture.