Lauren Purkhiser is the lucky one. Of the 120 students from every artistic discipline who worked on the Airstream Pursuit project, she is the one who got to show the finished product at the International Designers Society of America convention in Austin this week.
Lauren, a rising senior, understands her good fortune. She happened to be interning at Mary Kay in Dallas this summer. She was on hand. She made the drive down from Dallas, joined the faculty team and took the lead in providing tours of the Airstream.
Lauren has been busy, too. Over the past two days, some of America's top industrial designers and design educators have stopped to see the gleaming trailer they have heard about. A legion of curious pedestrians has also been drawn into the Pursuit.
"It's so crazy I happened to be in-state when this was happening," Lauren said yesterday. She was sitting on a park bench on the corner of East 4th and Neches Streets. The Hilton was in front of her, the Austin Convention Center was behind her and the Airstream was by her side.
“Of the design team, there were 12 of us – two interior designers and 10 industrial designers,” she said. “We spent a lot of Saturdays and Sundays – a lot of every day – working on this project. We built team relationships, and we grew very close. It was really cool.
“You don’t usually get that in a normal college environment. We’ll have these bonds for the rest of our lives.”
Lauren, 21, is from Akron. She once thought she would become an engineer or a doctor or a chemist. She once thought she wanted to go out-of-state and have “a normal college environment.” The lure of an arts education was strong, however, and she considered SCAD and the Cleveland Institute of Art before she decided Columbus was the place for her.
“My first visit, I said, ‘No way,” she said. “Then I realized the community within the school really had an impact, and that it was unique to CCAD. I immersed myself in that community.”
Sixteen months ago, the Tad Jeffrey FabLab was dedicated. The studio includes state-of-the-art three-dimensional printers, large-scale plotters, computer-driven laser and vinyl cutters, along with a CNC machine. It is part of CCAD’s expansion of its Industrial Design, and it provides students in students with training on the most advanced equipment and software they will use in the workplace.
Lauren was one of the dignitaries to give a speech at the dedication.
“She did a beautiful job,” said Dave Stockwell, CCAD’s chief of special projects. “She was so young, yet her passion and poise came right through.”
Yesterday, Tom Gattis, the Dean of the School of Designed Arts, beamed as Lauren paced up and down the sidewalk next to the Airstream while conducting an animated telephone conversation with a newspaper reporter.
“This is the best part of the job,” Gattis said. “Look at her. She probably has that reporter eating right out of her hand.”
Lauren is doing her work-study under the umbrella of the MindMarket Lab, a student design service aimed at giving under- and post-graduates exposure to real-world skills they will need upon graduation. MindMarket marries the college with the private sector.
The Pursuit project is a MindMarket production. For a year, it has been Lauren’s passion – and the passion of more than a hundred other students, not to mention faculty.
“For the designers, each of us was in charge of one section – but in the end, all of us are a part of all of it,” she said. “Everything has to fit – and has to fit that iconic, Airstream curvature. The whole project was a giant overalapping of designers. I learned so much from all of them.”
This week, she is their manufacturer's rep.
