College inspires unusual designs

Jennifer Knight

Monday, April 2, 2001 | 11:34 a.m.

The unveiling of the three finalists in the Nevada State College at Henderson architectural contest showed that this will be no ordinary college.

The winners were a subterranean college that sinks into the desert floor, a series of Jetson-inspired oval-shaped towers that stretch 39 stories high and are linked by monorail, and a modernistic series of buildings with a hint of Greek architectural influence.

The three winners will split a prize of $100,000 donated by BMI, the original land donor, and will be given the opporunity to adapt the designs to a new college location.

Designs were based on the old Landwell site, off Boulder Highway and Lake Mead Drive. Donation of that land fell through recently after the city could not hammer out a deal with the company during the current legislative session.

A new site has been identified in an industrial park near U.S. 95 and Car Country Boulevard.

"The jury looked at how the entries approached education, the site and the interaction of people, said juror Christopher Knight, chief art critic for the Los Angeles Times. "The three finalists were very aware of designing a college for an urban setting rather than designing for the traditional Jeffersonian setting."

The original concept was based on a Georgian-themed Eastern college, an idea that Regent Howard Rosenberg said did not fit Las Vegas.

"The whole thing that happens when you build a college is you're growing tradition," Rosenberg said. "We want to make sure that we are doing that here."

A panel of nine jurists met on Sunday to choose from the 18 eligible designs of 34 that were submitted. None of the eligible designs were from Nevada architectural firms. The three firms that placed as finalists were Field Paoli Architects of San Francisco, Konyk Architecture Inc. of New York and RNL Design of Denver.

The goal was to find three different themes and judge each of the contestants on their originality in capturing the imagination of the local community as well as their ability to convey their ideas.

Finalists may have to do more work than they originally intended. The board recommended that the three architects make their presentations to the state college architectural review committee Wednesday, after which they will be visit the new site and come back with revised drawings before May, said Dan O'Brien, manager of the Public Works Board and jurist for the contest.

"The drawings are all going to change because of the new site," O'Brien said. "This is really a look at their presentation skills and how they address a problem."

Although the state is not required to go through city channels to approve the designs, Henderson officials and the public will have a chance to look at them.

Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson said at least one of the designs will have to be scaled down to fit Henderson.

"It is real clear to me that neighbors would never accept a 39-story skyscraper, but would they accept a mixed use between vertical and linear buildings? I think so."

Jurists Christopher Knight, Jim Gibson and Dan O'Brien were joined on the panel by Robin Greenspun of Las Vegas, George Hasslein, the dean of Cal Poly's school of architecture, David Hicky, UNLV's professor of art history and theory, Reed Kroloff, editor-in-chief of Architecture Magazine, Stanley Saitowitz, professor of architecture at University of California, Berkeley, and Dan Paulien, planning consultant and president of the Society for College and University Planning.