Cal Poly Architecture was very different in 1970.  The College of Architecture and Environmental Design was still two years away from being officially organized and the School of Architecture was headed by George Hasslein, latter he would be the founding dean of the college.  George was very involved with the students and faculty.  He prided himself on the wide variety of instructors that he recruited from around the world.   The Gallery Lab, or the Fish Bowl as it is known today, hadn’t been used by the college for Architecture classes before.  But, at the start of the school year Dean Hasslein was using any space available for labs and he assigned a group of 14 students to take an empty room and turn it into their studio space.

Gallery Lab, Class of '70: Skip Carlstrom, Gary Carsten, Bob Bradberry, Neil McCallum, Dennis Runyan, Jon Pugh, Dennis Bethel, J. Scott Carter, Bob Turbin, Ed Ebright, Rick Holden, Rich Kopecky, and Will Carlton. (Missing from photo are Dale Burrious, Larry Huntoon, Rich Byfield and Tom DeKleer.)

Life at Cal Poly

Neil McCallum at his desk

These 14 young men (women were practically non existent in the program at the time) set to work their first quarter laying out the room, creating work spaces, and getting to know eachother.  The CAED curriculum, at the time, had all of the students from the different majors combined in the same classes the first two years of school.  Landscape Architects, Architectural Engineers, Architecture, and City and Regional Planning all took the same Freshman and Sophomore coursework.  (Construction Management wasn’t yet a program the college offered).  You had two years to change your mind on your major and it was fairly easy to switch within the CAED.   The third year of the Architecture program was important, it was the first year the students were separated from the other majors and were assigned a permanent space for the school year.  For all three quarters the students would be in the same classroom but with different teachers.

The 1970′s Gallary Lab had the following instructors, 1st Quarter – Gunter Dittmar, 2nd Quarter – Michio Ando, and 3rd Quarter – John Edmisten, a civil engineer and Architect.

Life on campus in the 70′s was a lot less constrained by bureaucracy and the Gallery Lab alumni remember feeling free to build, experiment, and try their ideas.  Life was also a lot cheaper, Neil McCallum, seen above, was able to pay for all of his expenses including tuition, room and board with only $1,500 a year.

Trash Can Lid Fountain

The highlight of the school year was Poly Royal.  This was an annual celebration of student work and life on campus.  The epitome of the “learn by doing” philosophy, Poly Royal required freshman students to donate 10 hours of work to preparing for the event, sophomore’s 20 hours, and Juniors 40 hours!  Typical projects for Poly Royal included repairing bridges, construction and restoration in Poly Canyon, and improvements to the campus.  For the 1970 Poly Royal celebration the Gallery Lab decided to transform the courtyard in front of their studio into an oasis.  They flooded the courtyard, built a canopy, and made a fountain out of lids “borrowed” from the metal trash cans put out for the event.

Events like Poly Royal, the “Great Styrofoam War” and the incident with the bloody trashcan (resulting in 8 stitches to Neil’s head), bonded the members of the Gallery Lab.   Just like today’s Fifth year studios, the shared experiences of an entire school year created lifetime friendships.

Reunions

Soon after graduating in 1972 and 1973 the members of the 1970′s Gallery Lab felt a desire to reunite.  Their first reunion was held in 1976 with nine more subsequent reunions including 1979, 1985, 1989, 1990, 1992, and 1997.

Typically attendance for these reunions was around five people, but for the recent 2010 reunion held on May 1st in San Luis Obispo, 10 out of the 14 Gallery Lab alumni attended.  Three of those in attendance came from out of state; Virginia, Wisconsin, and Nebraska.

Skip Carlstrom, one of the organizers of the reunion, said that the good attendance was probably due to the economy and the feeling of wanting to reunite and remember the “carefree Cal Poly days.”  Many of the alumni said that they felt it was important for Cal Poly alumni to stick together.

The reunion featured a slide show of the 1970 class and of past reunions, models and other work done during the school year, and a sit down dinner.  It was surprising how much work had survived 40 years, and the alumni were excited to share the stories and history behind it.

Alumni and family watch the slide show and reminisce

Thoughts For the Young Folk

All of the alumni we spoke to had very good memories of their time at Cal Poly and were proud of the education and experiences of their time on campus.  We did hear from many, however, that they are worried about the new Cal Poly graduates.  They cited their concern that current students may be trying more to challenge the Architecture program instead of letting the program challenge them.  They were also concerned that new graduates expect too much right out of graduation and don’t realize that success in the Architecture profession requires  hard work.

The 40th Gallery Lab reunion, more than anything, shows the impact that the Cal Poly experience can have on your life.  All but one of the alumni are licensed Architects and all remember studying at Cal Poly as a defining moment in their lives.

New LED Streetlights at the corner of Ygnacio Blvd. and Montego, Walnut Creek, CA

Driving home tonight I noticed LED streetlights emitting a soft white glow over parts of Ygnacio Blvd, here in Walnut Creek.  As of this evening the lights only extend the 3/4 mile stretch between N. Civic Dr. and Marchbanks Dr. and a couple random streetlights West of N. Civic Dr. and East of North Broadway.  Three quarters of a mile is not much considering Ygnacio Blvd. is over 7 miles long and is only one of several major streets in the city.

The lights emit a very natural cool white as opposed to the amber tint cast by the current high pressure sodium lights that are located throughout the rest of the city.  The benefits of LED are incredibly low energy consumption and a ridiculously long life time; 75,000+ hours compared to the 12,000 to 24,000 hours of high pressure sodium or 1,000 hours of an incandescent bulb.  However, due to the fact that they emit a white light, and therefore a broader spectrum of wavelengths, they do result in more light pollution.

Walnut Creek already has a policy in place to replace all of the traffic signals with LED lights (walnut-creek.org: Signals – LEDs and Battery Backup), however I found no mention on the cities web page of any plans to replace the streetlights.  The city already spent $1.46 million of Federal Stimulus dollars to resurface 1 mile of Civic Drive and it apparently gets an additional $677,000 for energy efficiency and conservation projects (Contra Costa Times 4/24/2009: Walnut Creek gets slice of stimulus pie).  Replacing streetlights with LEDs has been a popular use of stimulus money.  San Jose, Milwakee, and Missouri City, Texas are among the cities doing so (USA Today 3/3/2009: More cities tap stimulus package for LED streetlights).  Recovery.gov lists a few projects for Walnut Creek, including a contract for $58,615 with One Line Power Systems, Inc.  The company, located in Walnut Creek, has no website and I was unable to find any information about what the company does.

It is unclear at this time whether the US taxpayer is opening their wallet for our new street lights, but I for one, am happy for the new light being cast on our city.

UPDATE:  January 8th, 2010

As of today the city has replaced 126 fixtures stretching nearly two miles from Oakland Boulevard to Marchbanks Drive.

Almost two months after they were installed the Contra Costa Times finally reported yesterday that the city of Walnut Creek paid $87,000 for the install after receiving a $17,950 rebate from PG&E.   A PG&E spokesman said they were able to offer the rebate because of stimulus funding.  It also appears that PG&E hired the contractor to install the lights.

According to the Contra Costa Times the city’s energy savings have been dramatic.  The city is paying $726 $7,230 per month to power the new fixtures, down from $14,080 a month.  Energy usage decreased to 5,700 kwh, less than half the energy the original fixtures used.

UPDATE:  January 22nd, 2010

Thanks to grandcanyondave for providing a link to PGE’s current rate structure.  This give us a little more insight into the cost savings of switching to LED lights.  The following numbers show a typical scenario similar to what the city may have been paying previously and currently.

According to PGE’s current rates:

126 HPS 250 watt fixtures x $0.567 x 200 hours/month = $14,288/month

126 LED 150 watt fixtures x $0.295 x 200 hours/month = $7,434/month

According to grandcanyondave the city previously had a mix of 125 and 250 High Pressure Sodium fixtures, and 200 hours/month is a little low if it is late in the year, however I think these numbers help give an idea of the cost associated with street lighting.

Currently all the content on Seek is free.  I have a couple of Revit families on TurboSquid but my sales have come nowhere close to compensating for the time and effort put into their creation.  For content creators this good news because it will hopefully increase exposure of the content given that Seek search is built into Autodesk’s products.  There are still a lot of questions like if TurboSquid’s content will be integrated into Seek’s search results or if there will just be a link saying something like “more content here.”

We should know more after Autodesk’s official announcement.

TurboSquid’s announcement is below:

TurboSquid has some exciting news — today we signed a major agreement with Autodesk to benefit our sellers. TurboSquid has been named as Autodesk® Seek’s exclusive marketplace provider for the purchase of user-generated 3D content. TurboSquid will provide marketplace services for 3ds Max, Revit, Maya, Softimage, AutoCAD, Mudbox and other Autodesk application files.

We’re so excited about the opportunities this agreement will offer that we wanted to share the news with you right away. We’ll make an official announcement with Autodesk in the next few weeks.

Matt Wisdom | Chief Executive Officer | TurboSquid.com