Small Built Works Project

Abstract

The Small Built Works Project is an experimental design-build program that uses the city as its laboratory. Work is primarily initiated by a senior undergraduate option studio offered in the Spring then augmented by a construction techniques elective open to both graduate and undergraduate students. Small Built Works has completed twenty-seven streetscape projects in Buffalo's urban core since 2001 under the management construct of six conceptual projects that have generated four approved building permits. These six projects are the Community Transformation Project (2001–2004), the Bus Shelter Project (2002–2005), the Gateway Project (Kiosk and Planter 2003–2005), the Totem Project (Mardi Gras float and the Connecticut Street Sculpture Park 2004–2006), the El Museo Gallery (2005–2006), and the Greening Collaborative Project (2006). In 2005, the Small Built Works Project won the National Council of Architecture Registration Boards Grand Prize for the creative integration of education and practice. This presentation is broken down into three aspects of the concept of 1:1 inherent in the work.