WSIU InFocus Video Player

We tour a mock vintage 1950s-style diner where everything is “super-sized,” from the serving counter and dining booths to an authentic-looking giant jukebox. “Walt's Diner” is the creation of dozens of freshman architecture and interior design students who spent weeks working to create an oversized corrugated cardboard and brown paper mock-up of a 1950s eatery that would have looked right at home along Route 66. Peter Smith, an associate professor in the SIUC School of Architecture, gives WSIU's Jak Tichenor a tour of the exhibit that teaches students invaluable hands-on design lessons. Students have taken two-dimensional drawings and converted them into oversized representations of specific items, including cash registers, pancakes, bacon and eggs, and even the occasional cockroach lurking about the premises to snag a free snack. The students take part in similar exercises annually, and this year selected the theme of “Walt's Diner” in honor of School of Architecture Director Walter Wendler, who cut a cardboard ribbon to open the exhibit with – what else? – a giant pair of working cardboard scissors.

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