Many years ago we felt it was incumbent upon us, being located only five miles south of the University of Florida, to reach out to the schools of architecture and building construction at Florida’s flagship institution in order to help educate those students in material properties, design and application.
Our experience has shown that if architecture students aren’t exposed to different products and materials in the course of their studies that they generally come away knowing a lot about only concrete, steel and glass. And after all, once they graduate and become architects, designers and historic preservationists, we’d rather them remember us instead of us having to cold call them to introduce our products.
Recently, we had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Linda Stevenson of Stevenson Architects in
Bradenton, Florida and UF architecture professor, Will Zajac. Dr. Stevenson visited with her graduate students in the historic preservation program and Professor Zajac brought his studio students from US Deign 5: “the Florida landscape.”
During their visits, the classes were given a tour of the showroom and mill. These students, along with others we’ve had, were a highly inquisitive and attentive audience.
We enjoy hosting classes to our showroom and mill and find it to be beneficial in building relationships with these students from the very beginning of their careers.