UNIVERSITY PROFILE
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA STUDENTS TO GROW UP WITH PRECAST CONCRETE FOUNDATION PROGRAMS
BY MARTY MCINTYRE, PCI FOUNDATION The faculty at University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson had the opportunity to propose a precast studio for their campus. They saw it as the perfect opportunity for the Department of Civil Engineering and the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture to work together on an integrated program. The timing was perfect, as the school was enrolling students into its new architectural engineering program who could “grow up” with the precast concrete program.
The PCI Foundation program at UA will be one of the first to eventually offer courses across several departments with multiple faculty working together on buildings, bridges, and other precast concrete structures. The program will prepare students to either work in the precast concrete industry or design structures for a variety of other industries using precast/prestressed concrete products wisely and efficiently.
Students from University of Arizona visit Coreslab as part of their PCI Foundation program. Photo: University of Arizona.
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Before this program, all of the school’s precast concrete work was housed in the school of engineering, where professor Robert Fleischman has conducted precast concrete research. “About nine months before I found out about the PCI studio, [the architecture and engineering schools] got together to work on launching a new architectural engineering program,” says Fleischman. “That group is matriculating right now. The nice thing is, I am one of the three faculty members who are crafting the architecture engineering curriculum and its initiatives, so I’m in great position to make some impact with precast there.” “The architectural engineering programs will be a nice fit for our curriculum development grants in many ways,” says Jim Voss, chairman of the PCI Foundation. “The programs bring together much of what the precast industry is trying to promote with design-assist and considering precast concrete as a total system.”
4/9/19 11:41 AM