Everyone is aware of the late nights endured by architecture students at the University of Oregon. Lyn Travis Hooper, B.Arch.’95, even recalls hearing that Lawrence Hall was listed somewhere as a free overnight stay in Eugene. But Hooper also knows of the amazing results that come from those long nights and hard work.

Antlers Hotel Lobby: Present Condition

As a licensed architect for McCandless and Associates Architects, Inc. in Woodland, California, Hooper focuses on historic building rehabilitation. She works on buildings that have sheltered legends ranging from gold miner John Sutter to President Richard Nixon. While her role is mainly to care for the legal material and research, old, “really dangerous but really cool” buildings such as dilapidated hotels are preserved and renewed, thanks to Hooper and her associates.

Hooper and her team have earned two prestigious awards. Hooper, her consultants and the building owner won a 2008 Preservation Design Award from the California Preservation Foundation for their work on the Antlers Hotel in Lemoore, California. In addition, Hooper and her team won a 2008 Governor’s Historic Preservation Award from the California Office of Historic Preservation, based on the Hotel Fresno Rehabilitation Feasibility Study conducted for the city of Fresno. Both jobs helped to revive activity in the surrounding areas and helped to preserve a piece of local history.

Hooper took a winding road to reach this point in her life. In fact, Hooper did not start at the University of Oregon. She began her education at a junior college in Davis, California, pursuing law. Hooper quickly found that law was not her passion. Not until a family trip to the South did Hooper discover her true love: historic rehabilitation.

Antlers Hotel

While touring the South, Hooper picked up a book on old homes of the area. Hooper became frustrated when she discovered that many of the classic Civil War-era homes she adored had been or were in line to be demolished. Hooper did something about her concern for those old homes. She researched architecture programs and found a perfect fit at the UO.

While rigorous, the program gave Hooper a path. Two professors, Jenny Young and Peter Keyes, had a lasting effect on Hooper’s career because of their constructive criticism. According to Hooper, Young took the time to appreciate how Hooper could “implement ideas from the past and make them new.” Hooper never forgot Associate Professor Peter Keyes’s frank but effective praise and his positive responses to her work.

Now, Hooper, in true Oregonian fashion, is pushing for “green.” She would like to help historic building rehabilitation be seen by sustainability groups as a form of recycling; oftentimes, these groups argue that old buildings should not be used because of their energy inefficiency. However, Hooper will bridge the gap. After all, her job is to change the way people regard abandoned ideas.

–Jennifer Kane

Q&A with Lyn Travis Hooper

Q:  What were your areas of study at UO?
A: Architecture with minors in Architecture History and English Literature

Q: What class years were you at UO?
A: 1990-1995

Q: Did you have an on-campus residence?
A: I lived  off campus all five years

Q: Were you involved in student activities/clubs?
A: Intramural softball and I coached Kidsports girls softball in the Eugene community for three years

Q: What would you say were issues on campus at the time?
A:  Desert Storm — The war broke out during my first year at UO and people were concerned about our troops in the Gulf.

OJ Simpson shocked the world and DNA became a household acronym.

Then the incident at Waco which lead to the Oklahoma City bombing.

• I was preparing for my last midterm review in my  terminal (final) studio for my bachelor of architecture the morning of the  Oklahoma City bombing and, despite the tremendous amount of drawing I still  had left to do for that afternoon’s pin-up, I couldn’t take my eyes off the  television.

And, of course the Ducks in the Rose Bowl!!!

• I stood in line at the Casanova Center from  shortly after the Civil War win on Saturday night until Monday morning when  the student tickets went on sale.  My friends and I were among the first  seven people in line that braved the freezing temperatures and the overflowing  port-o-pots to secure our seat at the first UO Rose Bowl in more than half a  century.  I’ll be there again when we make it  back.

]]> http://aaablogs.uoregon.edu/100stories/2009/08/17/lyn-travis-hooper-b-arch-1995/feed/ 0 http://aaablogs.uoregon.edu/100stories/2009/08/17/hello-world/ http://aaablogs.uoregon.edu/100stories/2009/08/17/hello-world/#comments Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:18:43 +0000 Ed Parker

Bill Miller

Utah architect with roots at UO honored with state’s highest award

William Miller, FAIA, received the 2008 AIA Utah Bronze Medal, the highest award for architects in the state of Utah.

Like many California high school students interested in architecture in the early 1960s, William Miller enrolled in the University of Oregon’s undergraduate program. The Sacramento native estimates that almost half of his class was from California. “To me, it was a fortunate choice,” he said. “It was an incredible period of change, and Oregon was an open place that embraced those changes.”

Professor Miller, dean of the University of Utah College of Architecture & Planning from 1992 to 2002, said he encourages his students to experiment in studio, based on what he learned in Oregon’s ungraded, pass/fail classes. “You don’t learn by getting an A, but by taking risks and failing. I haven’t seen that at other places.”

Miller fondly recalls an intense week of meetings and lectures with visiting professionals, such as Michael Graves, who were invited by then department head Don Lyndon. “It adjusted my view about architecture and added a richer intellectual content.”

A series of faculty lecture series every Friday, ten in one semester, introduced Miller to renowned Finnish modernist Alvar Aalto and other Scandinavian designers. During that time, Aalto was working on the library at Mt. Angel, Oregon, and Miller had the chance to meet him after a lecture. Much of his academic research has focused on Aalto, including the definitive bibliography of Aalto scholarship.

Q&A with William Miller

Q:  Did you participate in student activities or clubs?
A:  Architecture students in the mid-1960s participate in clubs — really now!  But the anti-war protests, support for Gene McCarthy, Bobby Kennedy, etc., and other forms of demonstrations, well, of  course!

Q:  What were the issues on campus at the  time?
A:  See the answer to the question  above — it was about the social and cultural changes going on at the  time.