“People have the ability to manage how they use social media,” said Benjamin Johnson, co-author of the study, recently a doctoral student in communication at Ohio State and now an assistant professor at VU University Amsterdam. “It was just a very organic process to get involved in something that I know that my students, and myself personally, are going to always kind of remember as probably one of the highlights,” he said.These findings give more context to recent studies that found people who spend a lot of time on Facebook tend to be more frustrated, angry and lonely – presumably because of all the happy updates from friends that make them feel inadequate.
“When you sit through architecture classes, that’s one way of learning it, but until you actually get out on the field and build something, that’s to me where you gain a lot of your knowledge and learning,” he said.Ĭlinefelter said he believes students will long remember and be influenced by their experience. That way you have more compact zones.”Ĭolton Hinojosa, another OSU student who participated in the “Matchbox 17” project, described it as both humbling and an amazing opportunity to contribute to the community. Then, a lot of our focus was on things that were retractable, so having furniture that could fold into walls, or having dual space from the closet connecting to the bathroom. “Since a lot of the homes have a very open floor plan, we started to put wood slat dividers to divide the bed from the kitchen and living areas to help privacy. “Our structure was a classic homestyle shape, but it was broken up and divided into two levels,” Mann said. Instead, they set out to build homes personalized for each resident while still creating as much usable space as possible. Students Katelyn Mann and Tiffany Mollohan said they wanted to do more than just meet basic requirements. They were instructed to limit budgets to $140 per square foot – or around $40,000 per unit.
In addition to unique indoor living spaces, the students were encouraged to think about things like porches and how to incorporate outdoor living as well into their designs. Requirements were for them to not exceed 280 square feet and to be built using light-framing construction techniques. Fourteen who met with Pivot in January 2020 were challenged to design small, affordably built – but also very livable – dwellings. Sanza said the project has been perfect for third-year architecture students. “I thought this was a good starting point and, at the same time, a way to contribute to the community and be involved with outreach.” “When I teach, I like to give students an actual project to complete,” Sanza said. Over the past five years the nonprofit has opened 26 homes for teens and other young adults in need. It involves designing and building tiny houses for young adults who are homeless or “aging out” of the state’s foster care system without good prospects for places to live. The students, looking ahead to careers in architecture or construction, have taken part in a program called “Matchbox 17” first envisioned a few years ago by Paolo Sanza, an associate professor at the OSU School of Architecture, and Terry Clinefelter, who heads the department of construction technologies at OSU-OKC. Oklahoma State University students have been building places for young people in need to live while at the same time building futures for themselves.
campus in Oklahoma City for other young people in need.
Students enrolled in the OSU-OKC construction management and architecture program have been involved for the last few years with the “Matchbox 17” project to build tiny homes on the Pivot Inc.