Q&A With IIT Associate Professor Frank Flury
Q: How long have you been teaching at IIT?
A: I have been teaching at IIT since August 2000.
Q: What was your background before coming to IIT?
A: I am trained as a professional carpenter and have a professional degree in architecture. I taught design studio at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany for six years as well.
Q: How does a Design/Build class work?
A: In a regular studio course, students design a project which may be on a real site and have real clients but is never intended to be built. In a Design/Build studio, students have to build the end product of their design, which necessarily impacts the whole process. The process of building their design teaches the students implications of design decisions and also the process of how to make a building.
Q: What other Design/Build projects have you and your students worked on?
A: My first such project, through Auburn University in 2004-05, was the Rural Studio. We designed innovative, sustainable low-income housing in the form of a “Double Wide.” Then with an IIT Design/Build class in 2005-06, we worked on a “Sculpture Pavilion” on Northerly Island in Chicago. For that project we created a structure to house 13 artworks created by the students of 26 Chicago area schools under the auspices of Do Your P’Art. That same year I also led a team that worked on “IITKatrina,” a multipurpose building for the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center, a children’s museum in Gulfport, Mississippi. This IIT funded initiative replaced facilities that were lost in the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
Q: In your mind, what is the most important element of this project with Ragdale?
A: The importance of this project is in the educational benefit to the students who get to design and build a piece of architecture in an historically important and unique landscape setting. As well, given the environmentally sensitive landscape, the project will, both in its deconstruction and reconstruction make the least possible impact on the landscape. In addition, the students are working to design the most sustainable possible building through the use of appropriate new technologies and natural materials.
Q: What will make a project like this one a success?
A: The desire to create an excellent project through the collaboration of all the parties involved in the creative process will in the end make a successful project.
Q: What makes the Meadow Studio project unique?
A: The unique aspects of this project are the collaborative process and of course the site for the building.
Q: What do you think will prove to be the hardest part of this project?
A: The greatest challenge ultimately is to create a new studio that will do justice to the prairie setting and the greater setting of Ragdale itself – both the physical and cultural setting.
Q: What is your favorite part of the process?
A: My favorite part of the process is the creation of a piece of architecture starting from one phone call and ending up with the collaboration of hundreds of people.
