Students, most of them in gym shorts, toiled outside in the heat to finish their final project: an outdoor seating area fenced in by crisscrossed bamboo in front of Kilgore hall, tentatively called the “bamboo bistro.”
“These are going to expand with the sun,” said Will Hooker, the professor in horticulture heading the project, pointing at the plastic zip ties holding the bamboo together, “and the bamboo will shrink with the sun, so tie them tight.”
Hooker acts as foreman to the student workers from his studio horticulture landscape class, constructing the seating area as part of a series of bamboo design projects his class does every semester. The students, who address their professor by his first name, are divided in several groups with each performing a different task towards the completion of the project.
Some students split bamboo shafts using a tool that resembles and functions like an apple cutter, while others use special thick-bladed knives to trim off the sharp edges and notches from the inside of the bamboo strips, leaving a smooth, flat strip ready for use. The split and trimmed strips of bamboo are then secured together using plastic zip ties.
The students committed their entire afternoons and evenings to the construction, returning from other classes to continue building the seating area.
“On Monday we were here from 1:30 to 8:30,” said Sean Stokes, a junior in horticultural landscape design, “today we started at 12:45, and I’m sure we’re gonna be out here till 8:30 again.”
The fence’s curves flow up and down out like an aria out of the mouth of Kirby, a cob pig made of sand, clay and straw originally intended to be a pizza oven.
The doorways of the fence, which Hooker drew inspiration from Chinese-style moon gates for, are shaped like light bulbs. At one end of the perimeter, the bamboo fence becomes a half-dome, dubbed the “band shell” due to its resemblance to the area a band would perform in an auditorium.
“Why bamboo? Because its free,” said Hooker. “Most people just want to get rid of it.”
Hooker, however, sees value in bamboo: “I’ve been in love with it for 25 years.”
The project was designed in a collaborative effort by the entire class. The class began tearing down the old bamboo fence last Monday, according to Stokes. A time capsule left by the builders of the now torn-down seating area reveals the first one was constructed in 2005, and the class had decided it was time to replace the deteriorating older structure.
Hooker and his students hope to restore the seating area to enhance the experience for people who already frequent it, usually students and faculty whom eat lunch there or people waiting for the bus.
“I went out here one night from the studio, around two or three a.m., and there were people just sitting here and eating, so people do use this area,” Stokes said.
With the new design and refreshing renovation, students involved in the project hope to invite new audiences to enjoy the space.
“The theme is ‘inviting,'” said Jasmine Sudario-Cook, a senior in horticultural landscape design. “We’re hoping to bring people into the space and give them a nice place to sit and relax.”
According to Hooker, the project will be done within the next few days, but a completion date is not yet clear.
“We hope to be done by Friday, but it’s likely to be Sunday or or Monday,” Hooker said.
