Last semester senior interior architecture (IA) students at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point participated in a capstone project that required them to exercise the skills they had developed throughout their educational careers. They were asked by Assistant Professor Donna Zimmerman to create designs for Crowley�s Ridge Nature Center in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

The real-life experience was juried by architects and interior designers from Stuck Associates, the actual firm hired by Arkansas Game and Fish to design the nature center. The architects, from their firm in Arkansas, viewed and discussed the plans presented by student teams via a videoconference hookup in the College of Professional Studies.

Some of the challenges presented by the project were the location of the center, its situation within a unique cultural and environmental context, the application of southern building codes and seismic considerations as Jonesboro is located on the San Madrid Fault.

Zimmerman says the architects were very impressed with the amount of work, excellent space planning skills, creative uses of color and form and the quality of the UWSP students� designs.

IA senior Elisabeth Hoffman of Waukesha expressed her thanks to Zimmerman in this way: "I would like to say thank you for making my last studio a great learning experience. It says a lot about you as a professor to create a project that no one has yet to try. Designing a nature center is an opportunity that not many designers have while in school or out in the real world. The knowledge we gained through this project while working in teams, dealing with new concepts and being able to present via video to well-respected Arkansas architects will be something we will not soon forget, an experience we will carry with us throughout our careers."

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sclanton/vc/IA nature center