HARRISBURG URBAN STUDIO ADDS ARCHITECT ADVISORY COMMITTEE Several sites have been suggested as locations for the Urban Studio, with final selection dependent upon guidelines established by the Task Force.   (Harrisburg, PA) - Prominent Harrisburg area architects are taking an active role in the Harrisburg Urban Studio Task Force's architecture education center modeled on Auburn University's famous Rural Studio, a program which provides architectural students with a practical learning experience while enhancing the environment of disadvantaged communities. Pennsylvania's leading architecture colleges will send students to study, design and build in the Harrisburg Urban Studio. Representatives from the schools of architecture at Carnegie-Mellon University, The Pennsylvania State University, Temple University, Lehigh University as well as Auburn University's Rural Studio have formed a task force to establish the Harrisburg Urban Studio. Local architects have volunteered to serve on an advisory committee to provide guidance and practical consultation to the task force to locate and rehabilitate an appropriate building selected to house the Urban Studio. The Urban Studio building will serve as the locus for student-conducted architectural projects throughout the city, which will address a variety of community and neighborhood design-build situations. The plan is to have the volunteer architect advisers provide continued consultation and mentor individual neighborhood projects. Led by co-chairs Thomas E. Potter of Architecture YTT, and Timothy Allen of Timothy P. Allen, Architect, the Urban Studio Architect Advisory Committee includes: Bret E. Peters, of OPA; Keith R. Hudson of Facilities Planning Associates; D. Hunter Johnson, of Tono Architects; Harrison Bink, of Bink Partnership; Maria Wolnikowski, of Hammel Architects; Vern McKissick, of McKissick Associates; and Sam Pool, of GTS Technologies' Design Group. All members are registered architects available to provide consultation as required by the schools and students involved in the Harrisburg Urban Studio. Several sites have been suggested as locations for the Urban Studio, with final selection dependent upon guidelines established by the Task Force. The selected site will be within the city and will allow students to interact with both neighborhood leaders and city planners on a daily basis while designing and executing projects throughout the city. The Task Force is chaired by Brad Guy, Director of Operations for the Pennsylvania State University Hamer Center for Community Design Assistance. The Harrisburg Urban Studio is a project of Mayor Stephen R. Reed's Harrisburg Urban Initiative. For further information contact Nathan Pigott, Hershey Philbin Associates, npigott@hersheyphilbin.com or 717.975.2148. ###

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