Daily Lobo new mexico
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
wednesday March 25, 2015 | Vo l u m e 1 1 9 | I s s u e 1 2 5
Architects design children’s dreams
Nick Fojud / Daily Lobo / @nfojud
Rosa Castillo looks over blueprints for her team’s playhouse project Tuesday at the School of Architecture and Planning. Castillo is surrounded by multiple frames that will be used by teams to construct their playhouses.
Playhouses to be raffled for charity By Marielle Dent Class has become a playground for a group of architecture students. A UNM architecture and planning class is participating in Parade of Playhouses, where teams from across the state design and build playhouses to be auctioned for charity. In May, 11 families will be awarded free, unique, custom-made children’s playhouses, courtesy of the Parade of Playhouses raffle sponsored by New Mexico Appleseed, a local nonprofit organization. New Mexico Appleseed fights issues like homelessness, hunger and child abuse by working on public policy. The group aims to raise $20,000 through the auction, which is scheduled to take place at their charity gala. This is the second year the group is sponsoring Parade of Playhouses, but it is UNM’s first year participating. “The benefit to the students is they get to design and build something all in the same course,” said Matt Gines, director of the school
of architecture’s fabrication lab. “It makes them better designers. If you draw a bunch of stuff and you don’t really understand how it goes together, it doesn’t make you a good designer. Understanding what you’re drawing makes you a good designer.” The class has divided into two groups, with each building a themed playhouse. “Fairy Tale” is loosely inspired by Alice in Wonderland and has a slide that mimics Alice’s trip down the rabbit hole. “Just as Alice grows and shrinks, the children will either feel small or large as they explore the staircase that wraps around the frame or narrows as they go down the slide,” said Rosa Castillo, team manager for the house. “They also get to escape through a trap door to the bottom.” “Toy Factory” is a modern approach inspired by the sci-fi film Tron — circuit boards and cyber punk, Gines said. “The specifications dictated that everything sit within a 10-by-10-
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Playhouse page 2
Nick Fojud / Daily Lobo / @nfojud
Architecture student Damien Williams uses the CNC Router in the School of Architecture and Planning on Tuesday afternoon. Williams is part of a team that works in the FabLab, which contains an array of tools including plasma cutters and welders.
New Mexico DoH simulates health disaster at UNM By Jonathan Baca
Scenario: a terrorist has unleashed an attack of weaponized anthrax onto a southbound Rail Runner Express train. Public health
officials need to set up a Point of Dispensing location to hand out emergency medications during this crisis — and do it fast. This was the mock scene on March 18, when UNM Hospital’s
Health Sciences Center and other emergency agencies teamed up for a training exercise put on by the New Mexico Department of Health. The drill was held at Johnson Center and included 250 “players”
from UNM’s schools of Nursing, Pharmacy and Medicine, and the Campus Community Emergency Response Team, which consists of employees and volunteers trained to deal with situations like this
one, according to a press release. Other staff and volunteers posed as community members in need of disaster relief.
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Training page 2