While most students were busy enjoying their summer, junior interior design major Myra Guerra spent two weeks updating a single square inch of the Cal State Long Beach campus model.
The 10-year overdue update and refurbishment of the model took Guerra, junior interior design major Nicole Makari, junior general design major Brenda Castillejos and design professor Jeffrey Adair two months to complete.
“CSULB has done this kind of thing before, but we had to outsource it, so we left it off for years,” CSULB President F. King Alexander said. “It has never looked better.”
Revealed at the Design Department’s annual model building show yesterday, the 100 to one scale model depicts every inch of the CSULB campus with Google Map-like precision. The model, which was completed just three days ago, will soon be placed in the Office of the President. Once there, students and visitors alike will be able to gaze down on the exact, albeit miniature campus replica.
The model building show showcases the work of students in the interior architectural model building class, design 242. The showcase illustrated each stage of the entire model building process. Starting with Adair’s very own cluttered desk, which included coffee cups, to-do lists and a variety of tools and ending with the intricate finished product.
However, for the first time in the history of this event, the classes from last fall and spring both donated their final projects to CSULB. The projects were one to eight scale models of the recently built Student Recreation and Wellness Center and Hall of Science, respectively.
Every year, students in design 242 have to work together to build a small-scale replica of a building on campus. To make the assignment more practical, Adair makes their instructions purposefully vague.
“I give the students a problem and let them figure out how to solve it,” Adair said. “They work together to delegate deadlines and specific assignments.”
The SRWC model was done largely by hand, including the intricate brickwork and tiny treadmills. There were even miniature people on the basketball courts.
“Most students don’t realize how much work and patience it takes to put together an entire building model,” Guerra said.
Adair said he agrees that the entire process is very meticulous. He used Legos to recreate the smokestacks next to the stairs that lead to upper campus and cellophane to give the SRWC’s pool a lifelike shimmer.
“It’s all about the illusion,” Adair said. “What takes 30 seconds to describe can take 100 hours to do.”
The model will be on display in the Duncan Anderson Gallery until Sept. 20, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.