Last month, N. O. Nawari, architecture associate professor, working in collaboration with Frank Javaheri, sr. project manager at Skanska USA Building, was able to extend the School of Architecture undergraduate structures curriculum (ARC 3503) into the built environment using UF buildings currently under construction on campus: Chemistry / Chemical Biology Building.
“The knowledge of building structures in architectural curriculum is based on part theory and part applications,” Nawari said. “Teaching undergraduate students the principles of structural analysis and strength of materials using physics, numerical equations and digital modeling alone can be a difficult task without connections to real world projects.”
With the university’s campus situated in a mostly rural environment, faculty are fortunate to have a steady stream of building projects constructed on the campus over the past few years to use as valuable teaching laboratories. Frequently it is when undergraduate students are given the opportunity to make on-site observations of the architectural and structural systems of this complex science that the course starts to come together as a critical knowledge base for students.
Special thanks and gratitude are due to Javaheri and John Easterwood, assistant project manager for facilitating the site tour and presentation.
