As historic Texas campuses continue to grow, the Texas A&M College of Architecture will host a symposium event to address the growing pains that come along with expansion.
The 2016 Center for Heritage Conservation — CHC — Symposium will be held in the Chemistry Building Feb. 26-27 and will feature talks on life, death and health of historic buildings and landmarks at Texas universities.
CHC, a center authorized through the College of Architecture in 2005, focuses on research and service projects on Texas A&M’s historic legacy in addition to built and natural history. The center’s annual symposium aims to instill basic awareness of historic preservation by inviting speakers to give talks that relate to the Symposium’s given topic. This year will spotlight campus heritage and the current state of historic buildings on campuses throughout Texas.
Speakers at the symposium represent multiple campuses and will discuss issues related to the architecture, preservation and history of campus structures. Robert Warden, Director of CHC, said the theme was selected due to changes occurring in university growth.
“Higher Education facilities are rapidly expanding as universities and colleges, both private and public, compete for students and this raises issues about the viability and importance of existing buildings on these campuses,” Warden said.
Not only will the symposium’s speakers take a look at campus buildings in context of their history, but Sylvia Kendra, Associate Director of Smithsonian Facilities, will delve into the future technology of building design. Kendra said BIM, or building information management, will eliminate 2D blueprints in favor of integrating 3D architectural designs with building data in order to demonstrate a holistic model of structural changes.
“It’s more data; BIM just gives us a bigger picture,” Kendra said. “A big benefit is that our end-users – people who aren’t necessarily facilities experts, the people that visit our museums and the people that host our visitors – will be able to visualize what we’re doing for them a lot sooner.”
The CHC aims to work toward new technology to effectively pave the way for advanced building preservation techniques and stronger information frameworks for new additions as college campuses continue to grow. Ryan Tansey, visualization sophomore, indicated that the technology Kendra describes holds many powerful applications for the future.
“Photogrammetry is an innovative new method of creating 3D models out of real-world objects. You take multiple pictures around a building, a statue, or any other object in the real world and then a photorealistic, to-scale model can be generated,” Tansey said. “It is extremely useful in architecture, gaming, and industries to create immersive and captivating digital environments.”
The 2016 CHC Symposium will kick off Friday at 6 p.m. with a keynote address from Kendra.
