Cal Poly Architecture Freshmen to Showcase ‘Parasite’ Projects

The architectural designs of 35 teams of Cal Poly architecture and architectural engineering students will be on display at Cal Poly from March 13 at the Architecture and Environmental Building (No. 5) on campus.

The “Parasite” project challenges students to create a full-scale design using the skills they developed over the first 16 weeks of studio coursework. Students model, sketch and build the structure.

Students are asked to design a structure for an assigned space taking into account perception, motion, light, material, wind and building use. Projects are required to acknowledge the continued use of the building, to not make any permanent modifications or damage to the structure, and to be completely disassembled with an emphasis on the potential for recycling materials.

The project aims to teach freshmen the value of working in teams to accomplish more than if they had worked individually. It also tasks them with managing talent and time within a complex assignment.

A collaborative team of faculty members teach the class. They include Brent Freeby, Michael Lucas, JoAnn Moore, Margarida Yin, Carmen Trudell, Richard Beller and Keith Wiley.  The faculty team has published the student work in the Proceedings of the National Conference on the Beginning Design Student and presented it at the California State University Symposium on University Teaching