Student team helps develop school's exhibit for Venice

Venice student ambassadors at work planning the school's exhibition.

Our Venice student ambassadors at work planning the school's exhibition. (From left to right, Eric Burlingame, Kalyn Faller, Nicholas Wheeler) Photo by Maryanne Schultz

by Bradshaw Hovey

Published April 5, 2018 This content is archived.

When the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning was invited last November by the Global Art Affairs Foundation to participate in the 2018 Time Space Existence exhibit in Venice during the Architecture Biennale the answer was immediately “yes." But members of the school administration knew they would have to move very fast to mount an exhibit in just a shade over six months.

That involved creating a concept, producing the exhibit, and raising money to create the exhibit and send faculty and students to Italy to mount the show. The faculty members tasked to lead the effort – Korydon Smith and Greg Delaney – reached out quickly to a handful of the school’s most talented and reliable students to help with some of the key tasks.

The job included designing the space at the Palazzo Bembo as a mini-movie theater with audio-visual equipment, a projection screen, a bench for viewers to sit on, and systems to control both light and sound in the small exhibit room. It also meant creating a pamphlet to serve as a memento for visitors to take home from the experience.

It wasn’t hard to assemble a team that collectively provided a full range of skills to get the job done.

  • Eric Burlingame, a student in the Master of Science in Architecture in Inclusive Design and a specialist in acoustics, was chosen to design and specify A-V equipment for the exhibit room and help design a curtain system to manage sound both from and into the space.
  • Kalyn Faller, soon to graduate with her Bachelor of Science in Architecture Degree, and veteran student assistant in the School’s famous “Fab Lab,” was asked to help design a bench for visitors in the exhibit space to sit on while they watched a short film about the School and Buffalo.
  • Frank Kraemer, a second year graduate architecture student and recent design competition winter, was picked to help design the commemorative pamphlet for the exhibit.
  • Morgan Mansfield, a junior architecture student, and an assistant in the professional firm of professors Georg Rafailidis and Stephanie Davidson, will work with Kraemer.
  • Nick Wheeler, aiming to graduate from BS in Architecture program next December, is another hands-on problem solver with experience as a shop assistant will work with Faller.

Burlingame, Faller, and Wheeler will head to Venice to install the exhibit. Kraemer and Mansfield will go to Italy in August to participate in workshops (still TBD) in support of the exhibit.

The following profiles of each team member make clear that Smith and Delaney followed the old adage in picking their team: “If you want to make sure something gets done, ask a busy person.”

Send Our Students to Venice!

Our invitation to the Time Space Existence exhibit held in conjunction with the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale puts students in the center of the world's premier exhibition for architecture and design. Support our campaign to send students to Venice for this once-in-a-lifetime learning experience.