Steve Wiesenthal has overseen a slew of new building projects since taking over as the University of Chicago's associate vice president for facilities services and university architect.
Over the course of my career I have had the opportunity to work with several artists on public art projects that attempted to bridge the gap between art and architecture. The projects ranged from Acconci Studio's Newtown Creek project, in Brooklyn NY, which ushers the exterior environment into the visitorscentre, to Dennis Oppenheim's Ventura Bus Home, Ventura CA, where the bus shelter transforms from a bus to a home conceptually joining public and private space. This past year I was involved in a project with Gensler's Education and Culture Studio which did more than bridge a gap; it literally sliced right through the architecture.
In the wake of one of the worst earthquakes in Haiti’s history, the world focused its attention on the extensive damage to the country’s capital city, Port-au-Prince. What went somewhat overlooked was that the catastrophe of equal magnitude that was unfolding on Haiti’s southern coast in the city of Jacmel, where as many as 70 percent of the homes were damaged or destroyed. The images left no doubt in our minds - we knew we needed to put our talents to use to help Haitians recover from this terrible disaster.
David Broz 
It seems that every few decades, a shining star of a space gets its 15 minutes of fame on college campuses. At one time or another student unions, recreation centers, and student housing have each been the preferred perceived center of campus. And while students were busy hanging out in the food-rich and socially active student unions and the fitness oriented recreation centers, it seemed that the book repository had been forgotten. The role of school library—that place where students used to read, touch and smell the thousands of books that are neatly shelved on rows in these cloistered, quiet study areas—is evolving as fast as the technologies we now rely on to get information.
The volatile relationship between a college and the community that surrounds it is often as old as the institution itself.
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