New York's Cova Condominium Project: Integrating Ancestral Culture in Contemporary Design
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The Symposium provides undergraduates from all academic disciplines with an opportunity to share their research with the university community and other guests through conference-style oral presentations. The Symposium represents part of a larger effort of Iowa State University to enhance, support, and celebrate undergraduate research activity.
Though coordinated by the University Honors Program, all undergraduate students are eligible and encouraged to participate in the Symposium. Undergraduates conducting research but not yet ready to present their work are encouraged to attend the Symposium to learn about the presentation process and students not currently involved in research are encouraged to attend the Symposium to learn about the broad range of undergraduate research activities that are taking place at ISU.
The first Symposium was held in April 2007. The 39 students who presented research and their mentors collectively represented all of ISU's Colleges: Agriculture and Life Sciences, Business, Design, Engineering, Human Sciences, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, and the Graduate College. The event has grown to regularly include more than 100 students presenting on topics that span the broad range of disciplines studied at ISU.
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This project explored residential interior design at a compact scale, and addressed client issues of cultural identity, changing contexts, human behavior and special needs. Architect Frances Cova and his elderly mother Letizia, originally from Barcelona, Spain, purchased a condominium in Brooklyn, New York. The Covas desired a design concept that would incorporate their ancestral Spanish heritage, and its cultural identity, with the contemporary ideology of simplicity. Design methodology included assessing each client's functional spatial and character needs. Researching Letizia's physical limitations led to developing spatial arrangements to enable ergonomic comfort in her living quarters. To express architectural aesthetics through character, it was necessary to analyze Hispano Moresque and Roman classical forms reflecting Spain's Moorish and Imperial Roman influences. The design solution juxtaposed Spanish antiques, Moorish textiles and classical elements with contemporary furnishings, creating reasonable visual signs of the Cova's cultural heritage and Mediterranean life. Reimagined forms draw from the traditional language of the past, while reflecting the contemporary preferences through restraint. The project is important to designers who collaborate with clients to preserve individual cultural identities in a global economy, using traditional materials, forms, motifs and symbolism. In addition, it innovatively expands the perception of space within a small footprint.