Space Camp is a Faculty Committee designated with exploring how to innovate and push Anna Hiss Gymnasium into an asset for the design department.
An example of work that SpaceCamp performed included installing floor markings to enable students to RESET the commons space to an “ideal’” layout for all.
Anna Hiss Gymnasium was, in fact, a gymnasium at one point. Built in 1933, the gym was revolutionary at the time. Anna Hiss, the building’s namesake, sought out ideas from around the country to make the gym the best space that it could be, and make it state of the art. The space featured state of the art facilities, including a swimming pool, archery range, and various sports courts (“UT Campus History”).
Hiss was a pioneer for womens rights and integration, being the first women’s physical training instructor ever to be hired at UT Austin. Up to this point, women were allowed to attend college with their male counterparts, but not participate in extracurricular activities. Hiss’ job was to ensure that women could feel comfortable and help devise ways to allow women to participate in these activities and integrate them into campus life. She was a key advocate for women being able to participate in these activities.
She also advocated for the creation of a womens only gym, where women would be able to feel comfortable going to work out and play in sports. This led to the creation of the “Women's Gymnasium” in 1931, which was then later named to Anna Hiss Gymnasium after her retirement in 1957 (Vlasits).
A renovation of the gym was completed in 2021 that houses Texas Robotics main lab spaces, as well as two classrooms for the Design Department and shops that houses Digital Fabrication tools along with a Woodshop.
Anna Hiss Gymnasium when it was constructed in 1933.
In Spring of 2023, in collaboration with SpaceCamp, DES 346, Project Studio which is commonly known as wkrm (pronounced: workroom) researched ways and present findings to make AHG a space design students can call home.
Members of SpaceCamp included:
Nadia Caffesse, Senior Administrative Associate, Design
Kate Canales, Chair, Department of Design
Jon Freach, Associate Professor of Practice
Gray Garmon, Director, Center for Integrated Design
DiMitri Higginbotham, Assistant Professor of Practice
Monica Penick, Director of Undergraduate Programs, Design
José Perez, Assistant Professor of Practice
Henry Smith, Fabrication Manager
The Spring 2023 wkrm team consisted of:
Zac DeLane, Design ‘24
Taylor Mason, Design ‘24
Princeton Tran, Design ‘24
Grace Mensing, Design ‘24
Channing Lester, Design ‘24
Veda Rallabandi, Design ‘25
Gabriela Llanos, Design ‘23
Nandita Malholtra, Design ‘23
Our team started with a fundamental question:
What makes a place great?
This question sparked a lot of responses from our team, including “being flexible to meet my needs”, and “having snacks and easy access to food and comfort”. Some responses included the notion of moving space “beyond the ordinary”, noting that spaces should be unique and different from the rest to make a place great and worth visiting.
The Project for Public Spaces, a non profit that was developed in the 1970s in response to the lack of properly designed spaces, is an organization that aims to provide advice and guidance to develop space and help execute the idea of “placemaking”, which they define as:
a collaborative process by which
we can shape our public realm in
order to maximize shared value
This idea of making a place great through placemaking enabled us to think of Anna Hiss more of a place than another “space” that Design occupies. We aimed to make Anna Hiss a place people want to go, one that they find resourceful and intentional.
After getting our raw data down on stickies and stuck on the board, we then strived to mentally organize them into different “domains” that the Project for Public Spaces provided in their placemaking framework.
Using the Placemaking framework, our team came up with key questions related back to Anna Hiss Gymnasium (known as AHG) and the domains the Project for Public Spaces provided.
After iteration, we met with Space Camp for a kick off-event, where the Project for Public Space framework was introduced, along with our initial observations of AHG as design students, and perceptions and assumptions about the space.
The kick off meeting led to key observations:
The goal of the space is collaboration—which is communicated by the set-up of the space—but most of the coursework students receive is individual. There are few areas which communicate privacy, so students create private spaces by claiming one whole table as their own, which wastes space. The classrooms and common space have the same movable furniture. This may be why students feel the ownership to move around classroom spaces. The exposed, industrial interiors of the AHG are a strength because it communicates that it is a space for understanding how things work, and for making. But when the space lacks “making” and student work, it simply feels unfinished.
- There are competing visions for AHG—is AHG a dedicated center for design students, or a spot for interdisciplinary collaboration (for everyone)?
- There is a sense that AHG is “the Robotics building”—they are at the top of the perceived hierarchy of the AHG.When it comes to showcasing student work, faculty are looking to break down hierarchy, while students are seeking hierarchy, so they know what to strive towards.
- The Design Lab in the Art Building is a microcosm for what the AHG aspires to be—students create, collaborate, and have respect for the space/provided resources.
Much of the charm of AHG lies in its history, yet students are unaware of what that history is. The only nod to the history of the AHG is the framed bow in the faculty space, which students don’t see, and many faculty members don’t understand.
Design and Robotics are like bad roommates—they do not coexist well within the space, and do not understand each others’ needs. The Design side feels territorial, and Design stakeholders get frustrated when Robotics uses it.
Students and faculty have different reasons for wanting student work displayed. Faculty want to see that the students are actually doing/creating, whereas students want to see what makes a quality design project. The demand for design education from non-majors is there—they just don’t know where to find it. Established disciplines like CS draw many non-majors to their certificates because they have a strong presence and a dedicated space.
The kick-off ended with some key things our team had to consider and work with. Our research led to detailed observations that started to connect the dots of who uses the space, and why they use it.
After doing research, the team completed the process of sensemaking, which enabled us to understand the data we collected, and how it related back to the four domains from the Project for Public Spaces framework. During the sensemaking process, our team identified approximately 30 problems to address, prioritized them based on impact and feasibility, and framed 3 that informed concepting and prototyping.
During the process of sensemaking, major themes emerged about the four domains of our research:
- AHG has a lot of unused spaces
- There is a significant trek between the ART building and AHG, which are the two primary buildings that design occupies
- There is a lack of knowledge of resources that exist in AHG, so people don’t know where they are, and how to use or access them
- AHG doesn’t afford spaces for both individual or group work.
- AHG doesn’t feel like a home that the Design Department own.
Students feel like they’re locked out of resources, spaces, and other assets within the space.
- Noise travels easily in the space and doesn’t afford private conversations and group work.
- AHG lacks private spaces for people to work solo or do private work
- AHG lacks adequate design-related resources to get coursework done.
- Students don’t feel like they own the space, nor feel like they have the “authority” to own the space
- AHG lacks a specific identity or brand
- AHG feels like a STEM or engineering space instead of a design space
- AHG has overpolicied workspacesAHG has uncurated work displays, or a lack thereof.
From there, we created three problem statements that set us out to create concepts that responded to these statements. The problem statements outlined three key questions that stemmed from our research that would then inform how we created quick concepts and low-fidelity prototypes that aimed to respond to these problems.
The problem is AHG feels transitory and unsettled. Design students (and faculty) don’t seem comfortable enough to settle down and call it home.
This is a problem because without an established presence, meaningful exchange within the community is less likely to happen outside of class time.
This is a problem for design students, faculty, and staff who want a shared place around which to build community and share its benefits.
We hope to change the dynamic of the building and support its intended occupants by transforming AHG into a space for the Design school that is more welcoming, comfortable, and interactive.
The problem is that there is no consistent, curated culture of display or signage that contributes to a unified Design identity in AHG.
This is a problem because without coherent examples of design work on the walls, the strengths and potential of the Design department aren’t fully showcased, and students miss out on inspirational moments that help them see relationships between disciplines and find mentors in the school.
This is a problem for design students, staff, and faculty who want to draw inspiration from each other and the work. It’s also a problem for visitors who don’t know much about Design or that AHG is our home.
We want to activate a more narrated vertical space in AHG to drive Design storytelling, dialogue, and engagement at UT.
The problem is that students struggle with invisible barriers that arise when accessing and using Anna Hiss Gym. Students are intimidated by the woodshop and digital fabrication lab and confused about how to access them. Furthermore, they lack the knowledge of when classrooms are in use, so they are more reluctant to use the available studio supplies in each classroom.
This is a problem because students’ reluctance to use the resources at the AHG means that tools and technologies that are important for building design skills sit unused while labs are dark and empty. Students see the Anna Hiss Gym as a place where classes are held and not a place where they feel comfortable creating.
This is a problem for design students, especially those affected by COVID, who do not understand everything available and possible in the space that should feel like their home away from home.
We want to change this by clearing away the barriers and making the space resources clear to students, staff, and faculty.
Using the research and findings that wkrm generated, prototypes were created and tested that aimed to help provide solutions to these problem areas.
You can see those prototypes on the wkrm part of the website.
This leads us to Fall 2023. With wkrm now over, our prototypes were installed and left to fade into the wade-side, which left me with a fundamental question:
What’s the plan for maintaining these or iterating them further?
Space Camp was tasked with the task of iterating and servicing these prototypes. The fact is: no students were on Space Camp, and only faculty were allowed to be on it. This, meant I had to instigate the change myself.
This led to the creation of this very plan.
A plan that includes two things:
a future, and the now.
The Future
The future addresses what could AHG be? How could the space be made in a way that supports design students? Living in reality, this may involve introducing new furniture, adding walls or temporary dividers, or other “big tasks” that require approval or support of administration, donors, or other funding sources. It’s a vision of what the space could be, and data to back up why it should be designed and implemented this way.
The Future includes elements that are three dimensionally rendered for presentation. They are designed to give a visual to how AHG could look, compared to what it looks like currently.
While the vision seems impractical, it may spark conversations about what could be possible at AHG.
The Now
The Now shows what has been done and what should be done. Once the wkrm team leaves, we’ve learned that energy needs to be behind these prototypes and making methods. Adding additional tasks and layers of service to the ones that full time staff already do–on top of their already existing tasks–isn’t something they’re looking to do, or are asking to do. The action includes data-driven prototypes that can be implemented into the space, and how to maintain them for generations to come.
The action includes prototyped and tested elements that have and are already implemented into the current state of AHG. They should be maintained and serviced, per the description in the book. As well, they should be iterated and considered further as needed.
Student Driven
While the space is designed with everyone in mind, its primary residents are students. Students are the target audience for late-night study or work sessions, weekend visits, or simply considering it their home away from home. During the Fall 2023 semester, I had the opportunity to speak with students from different years and levels of study across the department to gather their perspectives on their current use of AHG, their thoughts and opinions on it, and how they would like to see the space changed. These conversations also touched on the pedagogy of Design at UT, the sense of community, and how the space supports it, as well as how design students approach the space.
José Perez discussed the design of the space with me and emphasized the importance of incorporating student voices to influence the project’s scope and direction. However, no one listened. This new vision aims to change that.
For students, by students.
Using the foundational research that our wkrm team did, along with conversations and interviews with stakeholders, this vision plan outlines concept, research, and prototypes that are designed to solve these questions.
The research data was tied back to these three categories of attitudes and attributes, community and the look and feel of design. Explore the research and findings by category below.
Using the Vision and Action framework as a guide to prototyping and testing, three prototypes were selected as a starting point to flesh out, ideate and test throughout the fall.
The Student Vision for
Anna Hiss Gym
Designed by Zac DeLane, with assistance from the Spring 2022 wkrm Team
