The College of Architecture Thursday hosted an exhibition, “ID+Red,” that featured 10 different works with a focus on community and social design from students and professionals.
ID+ is the college’s, and the state’s only, initiative where students and industry experts unite to create new and inventive projects. The annual showcase debuted last year with the sustainability-oriented “ID+Green.”
Mark Kimbrough, an associate professor in the College of Architecture, said the exhibit consisted of two years worth of work.
“One of the most challenging aspects for this event was selecting which objects we wanted to present,” Kimbrough said.
This year, each design was developed with the purpose to aid society, empower users and promote their livelihoods.
The event opened with an introductory speech from Patricia Oliver, the college’s dean, followed by each group and student introducing their products. Guests were then free to browse and ask the designers about their work.
Kimbrough led the projects for the industrial design seniors in the 2015 and 2016 classes. He split his class into two separate teams and set up meetings to go over the work, give input to and brainstorm with the teams.
Alumnus Richard Woodard worked on the racing wheelchair project in 2015 and also the SI-3D project, where he worked with the augmented reality team and helped with user experience, user interaction and design of the 3-D modeling.
Woodward’s racing wheelchair was a semester-long project with seven people, beginning with research and ending with the prototype.
“Working with them was frustrating at times, but overall really nice and well worth it,” Woodard said. “In a team, you’re able to accomplish a lot more and with more people, you’re able to come up with really unique ideas. It was a good change because we usually worked on solo projects, so it was our first really big group project.”
Among the visitors on opening night, architecture senior Michael Zepeda said that he liked the talent on display.
“I think the work here really show the capabilities of our program in the college of architecture and how we are more than just architects,” Zepeda said. “We are also branching into design and industrial design and showing how we can produce important work that’s beneficial to people in a way that isn’t just theoretical, but something they can experience.”
The exhibit is open in the College of Architecture and will be up until Jan. 31.
