The Group Final Project

For our final Arch 199 project, we designed the city of Octavia, a fictional place imagined by Italo Calvino in his text Invisible Cities. This city is described as “the spider-web city” and is held up solely by ropes and chains between two mountains. All buildings hang below the support system. Those who live in Octavia cannot be certain of their fate from day to day because, as Calvino points out, “they know the net will only last so long” (Calvino, 75). We took these ideas and transformed the fictional place into a real structure with a twist: the whole thing was made out of candy.

Using Lifesavers, Twizzlers, Fruit Roll-Ups, Starburst, Gummy Bears, dental floss, Hershey’s Kisses, and some rope, we created Octavia on a scale that spanned the size of a room. Below our city, marshmallow clouds rested upon a bedsheet that represented the void into which the city would inevitably fall. There were three main support ropes, with floss, Twizzlers, and Fruit Roll-Ups creating the rest of the spider web. Everything else hung from these supports, with nothing rising up.

Our construction of our masterpiece was most definitely on the fly, but it turned out much better than we initially thought. Our original idea was to have a dozen or so skewers with a pineapple on each side with some fruit on the skewers and some rock candy hanging as well; we were quickly told that this was too small scale and we had to shoot for the stars! When we finally secured our exhibition locale, the famous “Eagle’s Nest” room in Temple Hoyne Buell Hall, we really took a big step forward. We constructed the city in phases and different waves of volunteers. The structure went up Sunday, the houses and city elements early Monday, the clouds below on Monday night, and the great finishing touches before the unveiling on Tuesday.

With candy, we tried to recreate a lot of the elements from the description, keeping the principle that everything ‘hung below’ instead of rising. So our city, concentrated at the centre with clusters of ‘ground-scrapers and houses’ hung below. We also included elements such as people who inhabited the city. Ultimately ,we were able to create an edible model of a city that the inhabitants know will last so long, by making it out of substances that we wanted our audience to interact with and tear down.

This project provided an interesting experience, particularly with our choice of city, as it required us to pour all the knowledge we had accumulated over the course of the semester into a delicious model.  I’ll be the first to admit that I swiped a few starbursts and hershey kisses during the construction phase, but it was, nonetheless, an engaging project to have to assemble a city based solely upon a one page description provided by Italo Calvino.  Some features were deliberate and some features were unintended, but in the end I think we did a bang up job assembling Octavia for the class, not to mention it was incredibly delicious.

Creating an edible model of Octavia definitely turned out tougher in the end that I originally thought it would be. What seemed to be a simple design in the beginning led to multiple iterations before we could finally put all the pieces together. Although we wanted to make the model completely edible, we found that that would be next to impossible on the scale we were given, spanning the Eagle’s Nest. We needed to include a few non edible supports that would help steady the project until the Giants came and tore down the city. As we could see first hand, no one was ever sure when the city would be no more.

Week 13 - Philo

    For our final trip, we checked out Philo, Illinois, which happens to be "the center of the universe" according to their water tower. We looked at this small town to generalize small towns of the entire Midwest. We looked at the layout of the grain elevator and railroad as the center of town. We also learned about how the main roads are right there with the businesses, and then it turns to homes and then farms as you get farther away. It was a nice little town, but a bit quiet in my opinion. It was interesting to see how the large German population led to a Catholic influence on the area, which contains a Catholic school and church. Also, we were able to check out the local tavern for some snacks and sodas which was a great way to wrap up the class a bit.

Week 12 - Education Building/Krannert Art Museum

    This week we went and explored the Education Building and the Krannert Art Museum. The Education Building, pictured above, looks a bit like a Greek Temple. Internally, it's a pretty-symmetrical building with a plethora of classrooms and offices. As an engineer, it's certainly a building I would never step in if it wasn't for this tour. The building had two unique features that really caught my attention. First of all, it was really cool that you could get out on the balcony that wraps around the building. All of the offices allow you to get out there to look around and enjoy the weather. However, if you really want to enjoy the outdoors, the best feature is the garden on the West side of the building. It's a lovely walled-off area, with trees, shrubs, flowers, and benches to just relax and hang out. It really surprised me that something so nice was hidden away there.

    The other half of the trip was the Krannert Art Museum, which was our choice to check out. It's an unnoticed copper and granite building on the South end of campus, on the military axis. Inside we checked out a bunch of different art, which while cool, doesn't belong much on an architecture blog. 

Week 11 - More Campus Buildings

    This week we checked out a few of the buildings on campus that we haven't gotten around to yet. The first was the Main Library, pictured above. I've only been in the basement and passed through a couple times, so I had not seen much. There's three really cool features in the building. There are two massive, beautiful staircases inside. There's also a massive study room on the East side, with high ceilings and windows to give the building its height externally. Finally, there are the Main Stacks on the West side, which is a movie-like maze of shelves and books. It really is a cool building.
    The other two buildings we checked out were the Foreign Languages Building and Smith Memorial Hall. The Foreign Languages Building has a very interesting, "upside-down-pyramid" look to it. Supposedly, it is supposed to be an upside-down Tower of Babel. It has a unique sense of unity inside, and aims to bring the cultures together with openness. Smith Memorial Hall is just South of that, and is probably best described as a "little Foellinger Hall". It's a lovely building with a large auditorium with a stage, but just not of the scale of Foellinger.

Week 10 - Construction

    This trip we headed to a construction site, to see some of the near-end progress of the new veteran's building on campus. This was a unique tour because it was the first time we saw something that wasn't done. You could admire the design of the building for sure, as it thought about a lot of things. There are two elevators inside, and multiple lifts in the rooms to help the disabled. There are also large windows in the lobby area, so the veterans are able to see around the area and feel safe. It's considerations like those that most would forget about or not notice.

    However, the part of this trip that was really interesting was the construction aspect. You could see a massive project coming together, after years of funding, designing, and building. There were tons of workers on site, and the scene was bustling. It really was cool to see all of the detail that is needed.

Week 10 - Campus Cemetary

    This week we went to Mt. Hope Cemetery, on the South side of campus. It was a beautiful day, but a slightly gloomy tour. The first thing we did was check out the mausoleum, pictured above. It looked very nice in there, and had many tombs and a nice chapel. However, I found the latter part of the tour more interesting. We studied the layout of a cemetery, which is something you don't think about too often. It is divided up by many scattered roads, which serve to move cars and machinery throughout. The sections are not labeled, but you can pick out the patterns by looking at names and the type of headstones. There are sections for different religious affiliations, veterans, and families. There were two especially interesting groups. One was the wealthy families, who would have sections reserved with statues and obelisks. The other one that caught my attention was the athletic staff section which was closest to the football field. Overall, it was really interesting to think about how they lay out a cemetery, as you usually are not thinking about something like that when in one.

Week 9 - Campustown

    This week we took a tour through Campustown, which effectively is Green Street between 1st and Wright. It's the center of non academic life on campus, and is make up of restaurants, shops, and bars. We learned about the battle between the University, Champaign government, and local business, and saw how it shapes the environment. Basically, Boneyard Creek was a sensitive subject, so Green Street does not have any interaction with the creek, and the creek is actually ran underground.
    When it comes to the buildings, there are a few things in common. The buildings are mostly two stories, and all have glass fronts and tend to have awnings. An extremely interesting feature of a few buildings is that they've been built onto existing houses. The Clybourne and Firehaus both are built that way. I've been there many times and never noticed that those buildings are part house. We also got some interesting history of buildings, such as 309 Green being built where Burger King used to be.