The Lower Quad will receive a major facelift this spring, possibly with the help of some St. Thomas students.
To prepare for a class project in Victoria Young’s American architecture class, Young assigned class groups to design plans for the quad.
“Thankfully, due to our campus’s current renovations, Dr. Young was able to give us a great assignment that would both challenge us and force us to consider what we had learned about architectural design up to this point, which was to redesign the Lower Quad,” senior Regan Meyer said.
When the students went outside to survey the area, Mark Vangsgard, vice president for business affairs, said he noticed them and asked to see their designs when completed.
Art history professor Victoria Young and students from her architecture class talk about their class project.
Vangsgard, Jane Canney, vice president for student affairs, and Mary Ann Ryan, executive director of campus life, then attended Young’s class April 5 to discuss the students’ possible involvement in the quad’s renovation. Vangsgard said the plans had not yet been finalized, so the students’ ideas could be taken into consideration when planning.
“I think they listened really carefully to every student’s design, and Mark Vangsgard made it very clear that this is an inspiration and don’t be surprised if any of these elements show up because the design isn’t final yet,” Young said.
Three of the four student designs used a fountain element, which the Rev. Dennis Dease, university president, requested, Young said.
The west side of the quad starting from the sidewalk is now fenced off in preparation for the project. Young said the west half of the quad should be finished by the end of the semester, and then construction would begin on the east side by the library at the beginning of summer. The quad will be completely fenced off at that time, and the projects are expected to be completed by the end of the summer, she said.
“As a senior, it is rather bittersweet that I am involved in the hypothetical construction of a facility that I will probably never use,” Meyer said. “But I think that Dr. Young provided us with a great context in which to work and allowed us to dip our toes into the metaphorical landscape design pool.”
Maggie Clemensen can be reached at clem0427@stthomas.edu.
Not to happy to see that UST plans to cut back on the areas of green on its campus, but extremely excited to see that my sis may have the opportunity to have an impact on the design….go sis.