Auburn University architecture students' designs will inspire the forthcoming Alabama Impact Crater and Science Center.
The center will be built in Wetumpka over the impact site of an ancient meteor.
David King, professor of geology, was the first scientist to successfully determine that the mysterious horseshoe-shaped feature is an impact crater.
"I did not discover the crater, but I brought international recognition that it is an impact crater via my publications," King said.
The crater has become a geological landmark and visitor attraction for Alabama. However, its four-mile diameter makes it difficult for visitors to receive a complete tour.
Partnered with the Elmore County Crater Commission, Auburn University architecture students participated in a design competition for a new museum and science center which will serve as the commission's central facility for educating the public.
"This was an interesting challenge," said Justin Miller, assistant professor of architecture. "The crater is a big landform that is really difficult to apprehend in its entirety. The students had to come up with an interpretive center to describe the crater without having a very clear representation of it."
The designs for the center include a museum, auditorium, event space, observatory, research facility, gift shop and cafe.
"I tried to put myself in the shoes of what it would be like coming in the meteor from space to the Earth, how it would feel with the meteor coming to the impact," said Ryan Zimmerman, senior in interior architecture and winner of the competition. "I tried to capture that feel in my design."
Samantha O'Leary, junior in architecture and third-place winner, took a different approach.
"My angle was taking advantage of the site," O'Leary said. "There are all these views of the crater, and each one changes every time you move around the site."
The students spent a semester working on the project, which they said was demanding.
"For the last week of the project, I brought in a blow-up mattress, a bag of clothes, a dock kit and an alarm clock, and I lived in the community planning room," said Samuel Maddox, junior in interior architecture who took fourth place in the competition. "I slept about two hours a night."
Still, the students felt the end result was worth the effort.
"It was really cool designing the whole project because some of our ideas could be used to actually be built," Zimmerman said. "We spend all our time designing on paper and modeling on the computer, but this actually has an end result."
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