Introduction

There are several factors that make up the political context of our project, and have shaped our solution to the problem at hand. The political context is evaluated through three separate focal points. Insider and outsider sources are assessed to gauge community attitudes and perceptions of the problem. The feasibility of the project within the current political climate, the effects that it has on our design, and the possibility of its funding are taking into consideration. Lastly, the artwork considers the overall sustainability, and how its promotion can increase the feasibility and effectiveness of the final project by promoting the future of engineering.

Insider and Outsider Perspectives

Part of our political analysis covers the need to gather perspectives from inside and outside the Lafayette community. Within the political context, it is important to think of who thinks there is a problem, who can help us resolve it, and who are going to be the decision makers? Having different community members involved in our project has helped transform our concepts and ideas because varying input solved unseen problems as we progressed. As stated in New Creative Community, a “direct, hands-on participation moves people more than anything else, enlarging their vision of possibility much more immediately than might be achieved through mere observation” (Goldbard 2006, 54). We believe that the more interaction we have with community members, the more excited they will become about the success and implementation of this project.

Words used to describe the building of Acopian and how it makes students feel. Words provided by Lafayette engineering students from various engineering disciplines.

Although we believe that Acopian is in need of public art to improve the overall aesthetic, we reached out to community members to see if they agreed, to avoid solving a problem that didn’t actually exist. When talking to students inside and outside of the engineering division, it was unanimous that Acopian is “like a dungeon” and in desperate need of a makeover (A. Barton, personal communication, October 4, 2017). We polled various engineering students to provide words and adjectives describing how they would describe the building of Acopian and how it makes them feel. We then put these words together on a word cloud to showcase the dissatisfaction that these students have with their current learning environment. As our group researched and interviewed community members, we found that they are interested and excited about our project and want to help and get involved. Jim Toia, Scott Hummel, Daniel Sabatino and Mary Wilford Hunt have all offered us input from their distinctive backgrounds and provided us with direction to help shape our project. Jim Toia, a Lafayette art professor, provided us with names of artists such as Olafur Eliasson to look to for inspiration as well as helped expand on how to best use light in the space. Olafur Eliasson is an Icelandic artist, now based in Berlin, who “strives to make the concerns of art relevant to society at large” (Eliasson, 2017). Scott Hummel, Director of Engineering for Lafayette College, gave us insight into where he hopes to see the future of engineering and a possible source of funding for our project. He believes that the future of engineering will have a lot of influence from Olin College, where the curriculum is project based instead of lecture based. He informed us that he has funding for interdisciplinary projects similar to ours and if we came to him with a detailed proposal then we could talk about the logistics of starting implementation (S. Hummel, personal communication, November 10, 2017). Daniel Sabatino, professor of mechanical engineering, took us to his lab to prototype different flow patterns to see how we can manipulate our design to get the best shadowing through the windows. We worked with multiple sources of light and materials to find the most appealing shadow pattern. We came across difficulties keeping the water spread across the plastic since the casts would be completely vertical. We prototyped adding half globe bumps to the plastic and shined a light through the plastic which created a much nicer shadow pattern. We decided that was the best design option for the plastic half casts. Mary Wilford-Hunt, campus architect, provided us with drawings of Acopian and contact information for Stacy Levy. There are many community members that should be involved in the decision-making process, therefore we chose to include both members of the Lafayette community as well as artist Stacy Levy from outside of the community. In this way we included the voice of the college as well as a more removed and unbiased member in the development of our project.

The political context needs to consider who are the key decision makers and their importance to the implementation of the final project. For Lafayette’s campus, these key decision makers include Benjamin Cohen, Scott Hummel, Jim Toia, and Allison Byerly. These are members of the engineering and art community as well as Lafayette’s president, each having an important voice in the final decision-making process. The above-mentioned members each have varying degrees of weight to their voices, but it is essential that they see that our project is solving a problem that needs to be fixed. We have discussed our project with Cohen, Hummel, and Toia and they have said that they think an art installation would be an excellent addition to Acopian. The more people and areas of Lafayette that agree that Acopian needs to improve its aesthetic and culture, a greater sense of community will be developed. However it was never made clear what the decision making process entails.The author of New Creative Community also states the “more striking, effective or beautiful works of art can arise from the process of deep engagement with other community members. What is learned in process deepens our collective understanding of quality as well as community” (Goldbard, 2006, 55). Overall, including more people throughout the process has allowed for a well thought out design that enfolds community values within the final product and works towards the desired solution.

Political Feasibility

A major political deciding factor in the future of the art in the Acopian stairway project is the feasibility of the proposed project. The expenses associated with the project must be deemed justifiable by decision makers. The feasibility of convincing the college to fund the project largely rests in the design, and its economic strains. The most technical of our designs, including a solar thermal powered pump to constantly disperse collected rainwater through the installment, provides the greatest integration of engineering and art, which is one of the main selling points of the project. However, this design is by far associated with the greatest costs to the college. So while it best consolidates the two disciplines and reinforces the interdisciplinary nature the college prides itself on, it loses feasibility in its large price tag. In order to be the most feasible, the final design must find a balanced solution that both unifies the arts and engineering at a cost the college feels it can afford.  

Lafayette is currently focused on expansion, increasing the size of the college enrollment, accordingly adjusting the size of the campus. Because of this, much of the available funds are being allocated to projects that push the college in this direction. There is a large queue of projects that the college hopes to complete, aligned in a hierarchical timeline based on what the college deems to be the most essential in working towards their expansion end goals. With this current political climate, additional projects to be undertaken would likely be need to be considered a necessity to receive funding. A project in an already existing building that does not provide additional perceived functionality to the structure would normally not seem to be a necessary expense at first glance. However, as discussed briefly above, Lafayette prides itself on educating engineers with a broadened interdisciplinary curriculum. As stated on the Lafayette College website, the engineering program at Lafayette “provides an outstanding technical education, but also prepares students with the ability to think creatively, imagine broadly, communicate effectively and influence change” (Lafayette 2017). Funding an artwork in the Acopian stairway that embodies the very principles that the college touts on their website is indeed a necessity if the college hopes to continue to present this view. If the project is thus viewed as essential to uphold the reputation of the Lafayette engineering department, the feasibility of its inception into Acopian is reinforced.

Something to keep in mind in the face of Lafayette expansion as well is the new science center currently under construction nextdoor. The current political climate this new center creates will be affecting our project. Acopian will be fighting to keep up with the new, self-sustaining Rockwell Integrated Science center. This new building will be the center of all talk on campus and students will be flocking to use the new, exciting amenities. This will require Acopian to find new ways to utilize its current building and stay up to speed. The engineering building and therefore the engineering department might be overshadowed by it shiny new LEED accredited neighbor. The state of the art science center will entice students and highlight the merits of the sciences. In this context, there is a need for Acopian to align itself with the advanced new building that asserts the collaboration across disciplines that is sold as a core principle of the Lafayette community. An installation that combines engineering and art is a perfect addition to highlight the interdisciplinary nature of learning engineering on a liberal arts campus. As Alison Byerly states in an article about the new science center, “[w]e believe that learning and discovery happen best at the intersection of disciplines” (Lafayette, 2017). Once again, an art installation will embody these words, and bolster the image that Lafayette strives to maintain, as being the intersection of engineering and the liberal arts experience. For Acopian to receive a piece of public art that is sustainable, aesthetically pleasing, and an engineering feat, students and visitors will be excited to come into Acopian to see and learn more about how interdisciplinary the engineering community can be. These benefits derived from this current political context of the project add to its feasibility, as they increase the need for the the artwork’s instatement within Acopian.

Sustainability

A major political context that has shaped our design is sustainability, in every sense of the word. Primarily, we are concerned with the environmental impact of our project on the micro and meta scale. The micro scale consists of how our project affects its immediate surroundings and environment. The meta scale considers the implications that our project has for the sustainability of engineering as a profession.

In a world where climate change is a central issue, it’s impossible not to consider environmental sustainability as it affects our project politically. With the construction of the new Integrated Science Center, a LEED certified building, it’s clear that sustainability is one of Lafayette’s objectives. That said, if we intend for our project to be accepted by the community, it must be designed in a way that abides by the values of sustainable technology and social engineering. In this respect, the best possible outcome is to have our project require no outside energy, avoid disrupting the natural processes that occur in its vicinity, and inspire engineering students to do the same.

Historically engineering education is a discipline that focuses on functionality above all else (Wisnioski, 2012, p. 163). Engineer’s are taught that problems can be solved if the correct equations are used to tackle the problem. However, in the larger context of the world, more than functionality needs to be considered when solving an issue. There are unquantifiable contexts that need to be considered when solving a problem using engineering. In this respect, engineering should be viewed as a social practice as well as a technical one . If these contexts are not taken into consideration, the technological “solutions” that engineers create can do more harm than good. For this reason, engineering education has aimed to become socially conscious as a discipline (Guyotte, Sochacka, Costantino, Walther & Kellam, 2014, p. 13).

The Acopian Art Stairs Project aims to be as sustainable and socially conscious as possible in the hopes of making it politically more attractive. The more economically heavy alternatives for this project include a water pump, solar thermal, and photoelectric system (costs are further described in the Economic Analysis). These systems are designed to be sustainable and self-sufficient in that they would not draw on the energy or resources of the existing infrastructure in Acopian. This is politically advantageous in multiple ways. Primarily, in trying to get the project approved, a major selling point is that the art employs green technology. The added benefit of these self-sufficient systems is that they have little recurring costs to the school (Parajuli, Pokharel, & Østergaard, 2014, p. 545). Politically speaking, this makes the project much more attractive since the school will not have to continually allocate large sums of capital to keep the artwork functioning properly. The hydraulic and electrical systems would cost only a couple thousand (see Economic Analysis), especially if the system does not need to store energy. Since the pumping system is above ground and removed from plant and soil interference, O & M costs will be considerably lower (Parajuli, Pokharel, & Østergaard, 2014, p. 545).

Another important political aspect of the Art Stair Project is its improvement to the sustainability of engineering as a profession. The best way to ensure that engineering can be effective in the future is to train students to analyze issues from multiple perspectives (Borrego & Cutler, 2010, p. 355). Lafayette College knows the way to encourage multi perspective thinking is through interdisciplinary education. This is exactly what the art stairwell project encourages and inspires. The proposed display aims to make engineers question how they view engineering and how engineering can be integrated with other disciplines. In this way, the project will help to create engineers who do not think of engineering in a purely functional manner. Rather, by inspiring interdisciplinary thoughts, the Acopian Art Stairs project aims to affect engineers in a way that will make them better prepared for the future. In doing so, this project is helping to create an engineering climate which produces engineers who will think of technology in a sustainable way.

Conclusion

The larger political context in which our project is placed is extremely important to take into consideration because it has a great effect on whether or not the project is eventually undertaken. Ignoring the political context would likely result in a design that is not feasible, sustainable, not accepted by the community, and therefore rejected by the key decision makers providing approval and more importantly, funding for our project.