Center for Intercollegiate Collaboration

(Co-Lab)

Gainesville, FL

Undergraduate Portfolio

Site Study

This casting above is a campus light-level study, researched through an inspection of university infrastructure maps and crossed referenced by riding a bicycle around campus at night with a light level meter. The low areas of relief signify intense light levels; the high areas are those which introduce little light into the night sky. The astrophysics department houses several large telescopes, both for their own use and to host star gazing nights for the community. Their current location has inhibited the success of this mission due to light pollution. After completing an initial light level study, a campus overlay was added as a way to measure the association between light levels and density and to track potential areas for growth in an effort to
anticipate where further light pollution is bound to occur. From this study a site was chosen on the south edge of a wetland sitting in the middle of campus. The area connects to the main campus through roads used by the department of agriculture.

The permanent residencies are for an astrophysics library and research lab for work on electron microscopes, and for a poetry library and lecture hall for the English Department. Both of these departments are currently located in the densest, most high traffic part of campus. The English Department is loacted in the core of a building designed in the mid-eighties, offering little or no natural light. They often host poets and novelists who read in a cramped and dark lecture hall. They also have no dedicated poetry library.