By Khalida Sarwari
While most people were busy getting out of the house as often as they could this summer, a group of students in Richard Smith’s architecture class were spending their days studying houses, using what they learned to create impressive architectural models. Their designs can be seen at the West Valley College art gallery through Sept. 24.
Smith, a professor in the architecture and landscape department, offers the architectural model-making class every summer, according to Jason Challas, an art gallery coordinator at the college. The 20 students in the six-week class used wood and plastic to create redesigns of well-known houses such as Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, a 1910 Prairie-style house in Chicago.
The exhibit is being debuted at a time when the college is converging art and design disciplines that were formerly scattered across different divisions to the building that currently houses the applied arts and sciences department.
“All the art and design programs will be in one school so they can all be run more cohesively,” said Challas, adding that once the building is remodeled, it will be a “state-of-the-art facility” that will be the home of several different departments, including visual arts, sculpture, photography, animation, painting, drawing and design, music, theater, and film, fashion and interior design, architecture and digital media.
The building will be renamed the Bill & Leila Cilker School of Art and Design and is slated to open next summer.
The art gallery is on the lower level of the student center at West Valley College, 14000 Fruitvale Ave., Saratoga. The gallery is open Monday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Tuesday, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2-5 p.m.; Wednesday, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.; and Thursday, 2-5 p.m.
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