After about seven months of construction, USF St. Petersburg’s Harbor Hall renovations have been completed.
At Harbor Hall’s reveal party on April 1, attendees observed a digital art exhibition and were able to explore the building and examine its upgrades and additions.
Both current graphic design students and alumni submitted work to be displayed in the exhibition, titled “From Here to Where.” A juror chose the winners for categories such as Best Packaging, Best Print, and Best Animation. All of the winning pieces, along with the runner-ups, could be seen in a slideshow on a digital monitor.
Most of the renovations are on the first floor, with two new design studios, three classrooms, a community room and an 85-seat lecture auditorium.
Jennifer Lucas, an assistant professor of graphic design, said the area where the restorations were implemented used to be one large, open space.
Harbor Hall was originally the home of the Salvador Dalí Museum and shortly after the museum moved to its current location in 2011, the building was purchased by the university and was added as part of the campus.
It became known as Harbor Hall, the home of the department of Visual and Verbal Arts, which offers a combination of English and graphic design classes.
Lucas said that the upgrades and additions will benefit the entire department.
The design studios will be used by the graphic design students, while the classrooms will be used to hold classes like creative writing and composition.
“We have a lot more space,” Lucas said. “We hope to expand our graphic design program since we have this space, (and) we hope to have a lot more events in the community room.”
There are more changes students and faculty would like to see in Harbor Hall. According to the graphic design website, conversations are underway to expand the current Print Studio to almost double its size.
The graphic design program, limited to roughly 20 students who must go through an application process to enter, hopes to slowly expand the number of seats in coming years.
“The students now have more resources and space (to) spread out,” Lucas said. “They can use the classrooms outside of class time so they can design as a community.”
Graphic design seniors will host the program’s senior exhibition on the first floor of Harbor Hall / Harbor Hall’s first floor on April 29.
