Caretakers once lived at Cal Poly’s site for experimental architecture: ‘Real hands-on’
Architecture is about the living interplay between humans, the environment, engineering, design and function.
For decades, Cal Poly’s Poly Canyon has been a place where unique design experiments can be tested.
Although some of the shelters created by students as part of the San Luis Obispo university’s Design Village competition have vanished soon after they were built, 20 or so structures in the so-called Architecture Graveyard have taken on a more permanent life.
At one time, there were at least three caretakers living in Poly Canyon.
That practice ended because of safety and infrastructure concerns.
In an April 22, 1987, Telegram-Tribune article, Lila Fujimoto wrote about the canyon keepers, including one in charge of upkeep for the structure commonly known as Shell House.
Student caretakers’ Poly Canyon homes draw the curious
Amid the chirping crickets, wandering deer and grazing cows in Poly Canyon, Phil Johnson is learning to be an architect.
Johnson, 32, a fifth-year architecture student at Cal Poly, has built a hot tub, sunk a well, repaired a broken water heater, buried one house and painted another.
If this is learning, Johnson is doing it.
“It’s real hands-on,” said Johnson, who spent one sunny afternoon chopping wood for the stove that warms his house.
He’s one of three architecture students living as caretakers in experimental dwellings, designed and built by students in Poly Canyon.
Over the past 30 years, students from five Cal Poly programs have built unorthodox structures in the isolated canyon, which is off a mile long dirt road in the northeast corner of the campus.
The School of Architecture and Environmental Design leases about 12 acres from the School of Agriculture, which has a couple of conventional houses of its own in the canyon.
“It’s a unique environment,” said K. Richard Zweifel, associate dean of the School of Architecture and Environmental Design. “I don’t know of another campus in the country that has space like it for student projects.”
The projects — 17 of them remain — have included two geodesic domes, an underground house, a bridge house and three bridges.
Over the years some have been added to or redesigned
Others have been hauled off after outliving their usefulness. One project that didn’t work — a concrete sundial erected in 1971 — lies in pieces along one hillside.
“That’s a lesson in itself to see something fail.” Zweifel said. But he said, no project fails if students learn from it.’
Students in the university’s architecture, architecture engineering, construction management, landscape architecture and city and regional planning programs can apply to do building projects in the canyon.
Activity in the canyon passes from boom to bust depending on student interest. For the past two years, a boom phase has set in.
One group of students recently installed glass in the passive solar greenhouse, a project started six or eight years ago. Another student is installing a bathroom and shower in the underground house. Another group of students is working to restore the bridge house.’
Because students must scrounge up materials for the building themselves, it’s not unusual for projects to sit incomplete for years.
That was the case with Johnson’s dwelling, a shell-shaped house with a ceiling that rises 35 feet to a point.
Eight students built the outside in 1964. The students meant to build an open structure, Johnson said, but in later years a central core and windows and doors were installed.
Along the way, windows, cabinets, a well and hot tub were added.
“My house was started 22 years ago. It’ll never be done,” he said, looking not the least bit troubled.
“Nobody ever keeps track of the time,” he said. “Sometimes you put in five hours, sometimes 60. If a wall in your house falls out, you can’t say, ‘I’ve already put in 15 hours.’ ”
With all the work, there’s no time to feel lonesome, Johnson said. His dog, Shannon keeps him company.
“I suppose if I had a regular 9-to-5 job I might,” he said. “I don’t have that much extra time.
On a busy day, up to 25 people may be working in the canyon. That seems crowded, Johnson said.
But it’s nothing compared to visitors during Poly Royal Weekend, when the campus holds its open house. The 55th Poly Royal is this Friday and Saturday.
Last year, despite locked gates leading to the canyon and no particular attraction, Johnson gave tours to more than 2,000 people.
Johnson doesn’t mind the inconvenience.
If he’s awake, Johnson said, he will even give tours of his house to the occasional fraternity brother who comes knocking at 2:30 a.m.
Johnson will leave the deer nosing up to his reflecting glass windows, the roadrunners and the October tarantulas when he graduates in June.
Another student will move into the shell house and continue the work.
“It’s a nice scene,” Johnson said.
“It seems like you are out in the middle of nowhere and in five minutes you are on campus. If classes are too much, you just hop back here and forget all of it.”
