CSULB students turn white walls into blueprints

Jesse Juarez’s design studio class was a little different from the typical college course. He was assigned readings and his attendance was graded, but his final project – which required five weeks of intense focus – had a $150,000 budget.

Juarez, a Cal State Long Beach junior design major, was one of 26 junior design students given the opportunity to transform the first floor corridor of the Academic Services building from a bare hall into an engaging learning space and leave behind a creative legacy in the process. It was the first time the school had ever used students for facilities renovations.

Associate Vice President of Physical Planning & Facilities Management David Salazar said that when it came time to updating the AS hallway, he thought it would be better to go to design students rather than hire an outside firm.

“There are many projects that we do on campus that students [can] get actively involved in,” he said. “It’s a learn-by-doing kind of opportunity for them.”

The students’ designs were presented to a panel including CSULB President F. King Alexander, who then chose the top four presented. Renovations to the AS could be completed as early as fall 2013.

The AS building’s first floor hallway has needed some revamping for a while, Salazar said. The furniture is sparse, the walls are flat white and the whole space has only two accessible electrical outlets for students to use.

It’s challenges like these that made design professor Dorothy Ottolia apprehensive to the idea initially, she said. Presenting first-time upper-division design studio students with both a project of such a size and a comparatively small budget would be difficult, she said.

However, Ottolia’s students changed her mind.

“After meeting the students and getting to know them, I realized they were quite capable,” she said. “It was very impressive.”

Design 341A students were told to study how the AS corridor, a place Ottolia called “one of the most unpleasant places on campus,” was used by other students and tailor their ideas to student needs.

Juarez said the project was trying and pushed into his social and personal life. But the experience, he said, made it worth it.

“After having the privilege to present to [Alexander] and other key leaders of CSULB, I looked at my group members . . . and we all agreed that we walked away from that experience proud of what we were able to accomplish,” he said.

Juarez’s team implemented multicolored furniture, versatile tabletops and wall decorations with the names of each college and their subsidiary departments. His team’s design, though, was not one of the four winning designs.

Salazar said the project has been a success and that it’s a model he would like to replicate.

“In the future, we’re looking at working together with other academic programs on campus,” Salazar said. “If there are opportunities, we will definitely look into working with students to do them.”

Even though student designs were selected for the AS renovations, an outside architect must still be hired to conduct the renovations, Salazar. Salazar said the school is looking for an architect who is willing to incorporate as many of the students’ ideas as possible.