DAAP Students Named Finalists in Google's Campus Building Competition

A group of DAAP students who recently built the UC campus in 3-D were named finalists in a national competition sponsored by Google.

Ten University of Cincinnati architecture students recently took on a considerable challenge: To build UC's campus - in 3-D that is.

Dion Dwityabaswara and Jose Kozan
Graduate architecture student Dionisius Dwityabaswara, left, reviews the Google Earth project with Jose Kozan.
The challenge was part of a national competition sponsored by Google - the "Build Your Campus in 3-D Competition."

About 4,000 campus models from hundreds of universities were entered into the contest and the UC group - all students in UC's top-ranked College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) - were among 40 finalist groups.

Led by Jose Kozan, research associate in DAAP's Center for the Electronic Reconstruction of Historical and Archaeological Sites (CERHAS), the UC team worked a little more than ten weeks on the large-scale project. And truth be told, they're still tweaking and perfecting their 3-D model which will appear on UC's Web site at the end of the summer.

"We will enhance the 3-D models as new applications for Google Earth become available, such as adding to the buildings' panoramas to show interior spaces," explained Kozan, adding, "In some ways, the project will never be done. There will also be more to do, to add, to update always. That's the nature of visualization work."

Kyle Bragg and Peter Hilligoss
Graduate architecture students Kyle Bragg, standing, and Peter Hilligoss, seated, review the UC Google Earth project.
Architecture graduate student Peter Hilligoss, 22, of Hilliard, Ohio, agreed, "It would be easy to become obsessed by this project and just keep working on it. Like any design project, you can always do more and more."

But that just means more practice with the 3-D software, called SketchUp, used in this project and often used by architects to visualize projects and display design possibilities to clients. "The popularity of this program with architects is one of the reasons I joined in on the project," explained Hilligoss who specifically focused on creating a 3-D computer models of UC's Daniels Hall and the Jefferson Residence Complex as his contribution to the effort. He added, "In architecture practices and studios, this is a program we use. I wanted to learn new functions since I'll certainly be using it on the job."

Fellow architecture graduate student John Stoughton, 22, of Montgomery, Ohio, had already used SketchUp on a previous cooperative-education quarter when he worked for Philadelphia firm BLT Architects. That provided him a leg up on the Google project for which he created models of French Hall and Dabney Hall.

"On co-op, I used SketchUp so that the firm I was working for could present different ideas to clients. I think that experienced was a plus to really help out with the Google project because I was a little more familiar with the sofrtware that some other students, but I still appreciated the chance for more experience," Stoughton stated, adding that he also liked the large-scale challenge the competition represented.

He said, "It was cool to submit a project on this scale when we were up against other schools internationally. It went beyond the scope and scale of our usual school projects. . I like a big challenge like that."

Turner Hall
Turner Hall, part of the Jefferson Residence Complex, is part of the 3-D campus created by DAAP students.
Good thing because there were plenty of challenges large and small along the way, according to Kozan. He recalled, "We sent the 3-D model to Google at the end of a particularly hectic week. One student lost all his files. And most of the group was working on final studio projects too. All the students worked very hard until the last minute. It was a sprint at the end, and we were able to submit versions of the digital buildings that will certainly be useful as a tool for understanding and exploring our real campus."


In all, 12 architecture students contributed to the 3-D campus-building effort. They were
Engineering Research Center
UC's Engineering Research Center, originally designed by DAAP alumni Michael Graves, was also part of the 3-D project.
  • Kyle Bragg
  • Corey DiRutigliano
  • Mark Dorsey
  • Marco Downs
  • Dionisius Dwityabaswara
  • Matthew Eckberg
  • Jonathan Herman
  • Peter Hilligoss
  • Dukyoung Lee
  • Corey Reinaker
  • John Stoughton
  • Gregory Tallos

Others within DAAP and UC also leant support, information and materials:

  • Pete Akins, applications analyst, DAAP
  • Donna Hamilton, assistant vice president, University Relations
  • Michael Ross, senior CAD technician and plan room manager, University Architects Office
  • Lisa Ventre, assistant director, Creative Services