Early this semester, brutalist inspired tables and benches were erected in the Peter Rudy Wallace courtyard. Despite the efforts to beautify the campus, professors are still skeptical of its effectiveness. Martha Rhine | The Crow’s Nest
By Dylan Hart
A project redesigning the Peter Rudy Wallace Center for Teachers’ back courtyard is underway.
PRW houses a multitude of classes in the journalism, history and politics departments, as well as the offices of the Florida Humanities Council and the Journalism and Digital Communication department and the JDC graduate program.
Benches and tables that sat in the courtyard for years were suddenly removed two weeks ago and replaced with stark black and white stone tables with no chairs surrounding them.
The location of PRW makes both its atrium and courtyard a common shortcut to the parking garage for students and faculty, but beyond those passersby, the courtyard often remains empty in the heat of the fall semester.
Yet the air-conditioned atrium is often filled with students before classes. Both students and professors have raised concerns about the lack of any significant shade in the courtyard, even after the redesign.
“It’s a cool design, but I think they could have done more to make it more enjoyable out here,” said Noel Mullins, a senior journalism major. “Shading would have been the more ideal aspect to work on in my opinion.”
The redesign comes after a previous project several years ago that rebuilt the drainage system in the PRW courtyard.
While several large oak trees used to provide shade for the courtyard, the roots caused serious issues for the drainage system underneath, so trees were replaced with palms.
Casey Peterson, an adjunct professor in the JDC department, also recognized how shade affected the courtyard.
“Up until a few years ago, the courtyard had large oak trees that canopied the space and made for a pretty nice spot to study and for folks to hang out between classes,” said Peterson. “The courtyard drains fine now, but I hardly ever see students out there anymore since there’s no shade.”
The design of the courtyard is noticeably similar to the design of the wayfinding systems that were constructed in several spots on campus at the beginning of the semester, austerely erected in the brutalist architectural style.
Mark Walters, a professor and graduate program director in the JDC department, was glad to see the redesign, but still saw issues with the update.
“I think updating the outdoor furniture in the courtyard was an amazing idea and long overdue. Same for the great maps around campus,” he said. “On a practical level, the tables pool water and the benches get too hot to sit on in the sun. That’s a problem in a hot, rainy climate.”
Several professors raised further concerns about the static nature of the new outdoor furniture, citing previous usage of the tables for a variety of projects in photography, film and journalism.
“I think the flexibility to move things around to accommodate different size groups and configurations would have been helpful. Some professors occasionally hold class in the courtyard,” Walters said. “With furniture and tables you can’t move, I’m not sure how they’ll do that in the future.”
USF St. Petersburg Facilities Planning and Construction did not respond to requests for comment.
