Professor, Students Design and Build Children’s Center for Katrina-Ravaged Gulfport
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) Assistant Professor of Architecture Frank Flury organized a group of students to contribute to the relief effort.
“The students were excited for the opportunity to do something to help the people of Gulfport,” said Flury.
The group has partnered with the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center to design and build a 1000 square foot building in Gulfport, Miss., which will accommodate children’s groups for summer camps, lectures, language classes and other activities. Flury and graduate student Emer O’Donovan visited Gulfport in January to meet with the center’s staff and develop the plan for the project. The structure will be built in sections on the IIT campus, shipped and then assembled on site in May by the 14-member team.
“Our goal was to find a way to use our skills to help one of the affected communities get back on their feet,” said graduate student Emer O’Donovan.
To accommodate the large number of volunteers—who were willing to help but unable to make an extended trip to the Gulf coast—and to avoid stressing an already strained local infrastructure, the IIT team concluded that the majority of the design and construction work would need to be done in Chicago. Prefabrication and limited assembly became the driving issues of the design process, and after several weeks, the team had drawn up plans for a component-based structure that can be transported via truck and assembled on site in seven days. Prefabrication of the wall panels has already begun in Chicago, and the group plans to assemble the building in May—just in time for the first summer camps in June.
Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting technological university awarding degrees in the sciences, mathematics and engineering, as well as architecture, psychology, design, business and law. IIT’s interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum prepares the university’s 6,200 students for leadership roles in an increasingly complex and culturally diverse global workplace.
