 "Photo: Emily Schneider")
Walking through the 5000 level of the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning building, past the Rapid Prototyping Center and an exhibit of model dentist's offices, into the office of Associate Dean Anton Harfmann, and sitting down to hear him launch into a detailed and highly energetic explanation. With all the patience of a kindergarten teacher - he tells of UC's entry in the 2007 Solar Decathlon in Washington, DC, one thing becomes apparent, this man lives and breathes architecture.
A stack of books on his desk all relate to building in some way, and a pile of papers that sit idly are revealed to be the plans for UC's Solar Home Project, more formally known as the reform house.
The project has been in the works for roughly 18 months, and construction has begun on UC's campus. Harfmann has been involved since the very beginning.
Christopher Davis, a year architecture student who started taking classes from Harfmann a few years ago, described him as "practical, confident and infinitely knowledgeable about how exactly to put a building together."
He went on to describe his experience with Harfmann regarding this project.
"I hadn't really expected him to be one of the central team leaders because I knew that as an associate dean, he was, and is, already incredibly busy," Davis said, who is now one of the forerunners of the student team. "But he's been our team's strongest leader."
Another project participant, and year architecture student, Luke Field echoed Davis' sentiment.
"Anton has worked extremely hard to bring disparate groups of students, faculty and administrators together," Field said. "His passion for the work has rubbed off on others."
Harfmann discussed the project like a young architecture student who has just been given his first opportunity to build.
"For me, it's been an intellectually stimulating experience," Harfmann said, hinting at the deeper reasons for his excitement about the house. "I get the sense that this project is right in line with his thinking of what an architectural education should be. Working in collaborative teams, technological innovation, experience with construction, all of these things."
The Solar Decathlon project is uniquely between academia and professional practice, Field said.
"Both the students and the faculty have benefited from the opportunity to apply the more theoretical research generated in the University setting to an actual built project," Field said. "It's an opportunity that is rarely seen in the professional world."
This may explain the burgeoning student interest. More than 100 students from four separate colleges at the university are working on the project together.
"I've learned more in the last six months, working with the business majors and the engineering students and faculty than I've probably learned in the last ten years of my life," Harfmann said. "The information and the exposure to new technologies and to how they work has been fascinating.
"Just watching the students work together - the engineering and business students are always in our studio, the industrial designers - has been amazing," he said. "To just see the people who haven't figured out that there are boundaries between our disciplines working together in harmony towards this project, seeing them excited, seeing them pour their hearts into this has been a remarkable thing to watch."
For more information on UC's Solar Decathlon entry and to track the project's progress, visit daap.uc.edu/solar/2007/index.
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