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Fifty students welcomed into new program, the only one of its kind in Northeastern Pa.
Marywood University School of Architecture Dean Greg Hunt, top right, and Maria MacDonald, head of the school’s interior architecture program, address the region’s first architecture class in Scranton on Tuesday afternoon. Students sat on a wide wooden staircase that will double as stadium seating for lectures. The stairs were built from hard maple floors torn up from an old aerobics studio in the building and some flooring from the basketball court.
Bill tarutis/for the times leader
The Shields Center for Visual Arts is home to the new architecture program on the campus of Marywood University. Housed in the school’s old gymnasium, the building underwent nearly 10 months of renovations using innovative green methods, including a rooftop garden that will capture rainwater to use for the lavatory.
Bill Tarutis/for the times leader
SCRANTON – One of only a handful of architecture schools in the country that focuses on green design opened its doors this week, revealing a classroom building that doubles as a textbook.
Marywood University’s $4.5 million project, designed by Hemmler and Camayd Architects, of Scranton, welcomed its first batch of 50 architecture students Tuesday. That number was twice what the school had originally intended.
For many of those students — the only ones in Northeastern Pennsylvania studying to earn an architecture degree – it was the first chance for them to see their home for at least the next four years.
“I’ve been waiting to get in this building since orientation in May,” said recent Holy Redeemer High School graduate Jillian Soprano, an 18-year-old freshman from Wilkes-Barre. “It is mind-blowing and amazing. It just feels like you can do anything in here. It’s inspiring.”
Housed in the school’s old gymnasium, the building underwent nearly 10 months of renovations using innovative green methods the students will soon be learning about.
Students sat on a wide wooden staircase that will double as stadium seating for lectures. The stairs were built from hard maple floors torn up from an old aerobics studio in the building and some flooring from the basketball court. The majority of the court remains as the flooring.
They got a tour of the facility, many asking questions and taking pictures. They saw the rooftop garden that will capture rainwater to use for the lavatory; 10-foot-high windows above the mezzanine that lets natural light in, reducing the use of electricity for artificial lighting; huge blowers, reminiscent of the steam stacks on cruise ships, blow out air that has been taken in from the outside, and heated or cooled underground via the building’s new geo-thermal cooling system; and exposed pipes, beams and wiring that give students an idea of how structures are designed.
Dean Gregory K. Hunt told students that 83 percent of the construction waste was recycled, much of it on the university’s grounds.
Marywood’s provost, Peter Cimbolic, told the students, “This will be a teaching building.” Cimbolic worked with Hunt at Virginia Tech and helped bring him to Marywood to lead the initiative to create the new school.
Hunt thanked the students for taking “an enormous leap of faith.” The school was just an idea less than two years ago. But once it became apparent to the university that an architecture school was needed in the area – the closest schools to Scranton are in Philadelphia and Syracuse – it was fast-tracked.
But even Hunt said the response from the community and the interest shown from high school students were overwhelming. More than 1,000 applied for admission. Only 5 percent of the applicant pool was in the former gym Tuesday.
Among them was Molly Murphy, 18, of Jackson Township. The Lake-Lehman High School graduate was looking to attend architecture school and wanted to stay as close to home as possible. Then she heard about the Marywood endeavor.
“It was perfect timing,” she said.
Not only will area students have a closer option to study architecture, but they are also enrolled in one of a limited number of schools that will encourage all students to be required to prepare for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification test. Having that certification could be not only a selling point in luring students to the school but also an advantage for graduates looking to land a job.
“That was my deciding factor to come here,” said Dave Botscheller, 19, of Dalton.
“It’s going to be a big opportunity for me. People are going to be looking for these green architects. It’s the future,” said the recent Lackawanna Trail graduate.