Innovative Interactive Media via UO Alum will Bring Life to the Ford Alumni Center
Lars Uwe Bleher, a 1994 alum from UO’s grad school, an assistant professor of architecture, an early adopter of digital design tools and a professional exhibit designer. All of which makes him an ideal candidate for planning the exhibits in the UO’s new alumni center. But Bleher got the assignment almost by chance.
Bleher originally got in touch with the well-regarded Portland media firm Second Story Interactive Studios when a colleague was looking for work. Bleher then received a message that Second Story principal Brad Johnson wanted to speak to him also. Right now. “Some phone calls you know will be important in your life,” Bleher said.
Second Story needed someone to give shape to its digital media exhibits for the new Cheryl Ramberg Ford and Allyn Ford Alumni Center. Bleher describes his role as “the link between the people who do the building and the people who do the interactives,” he said. “I'm the scenographer who pours it into a form.” Bleher, who splits his time between Eugene and Frankfurt, Germany, specializes in what he calls multi-dimensional “communicating environments,” as managing design director at Atelier Markgraph.
He sees himself enhancing the atmosphere of the Alumni Center interiors designed by Opsis Architecture and the building itself by TVA Architects. The collaboration is at the forefront of a new approach to exhibit and museum design. “You can't just bombard people with media. How do you integrate new media and not just hang it on wall like at a Best Buy?” he asked. “There’s a new field emerging: spaces that are communicative, tell a story, have a narrative and message.”
Shaping the Center’s visitor experience is still underway. After considering several different spatial metaphors, the collaboration is progressing with Bleher’s concept based on a storyline which is the brain child of Second Story. They have proposed a ‘forest’ of vertical LCD panels that graphically portray the university’s culture, facts and notable stories. The movable displays can be grouped and combined for different events and presentations. Complementing them is an interactive alumni table, a waterfall sculpture in the atrium and custom interior elements such as the carpet treatment that evokes a pond.
“I believe in design alternatives. Get the first idea out, show it to people, and quite often you can derive a concept from it. As a design dialogue, [Second Story] didn't just want a solution. Through discussions we can find the solution, rather than a job with a yes or no.”
Driving the design is a homegrown sensitivity to sustainability and technology. The designers plan to experiment with media embedded in wood, for “surfaces that are media driven and not just screens behind glass,” Bleher said. “It’s innovative yet at the same time, congruent with Oregon. There’s a humanistic aspect about it.”
Bleher, a Fulbright scholar from Germany who attended UO’s graduate school in architecture from 1992 to 1994, appreciates the collaborative process and personal connection that makes the project special. “Since I went to grad school here, each day I spend on this project is nice. The spatial design came very natural to me.”
Whether attending a formal reception or stopping by for a campus tour, visitors will be given a comprehensive insight into everything UO, Bleher said. “This is a great recruiting tool, what a company would call the showroom. It will show people about the university in a spatial way, not a classroom or PowerPoint slideshow, so it’s more memorable. It will make it come alive for all generations. For alumni it will be about the past, and for the young, it will relate to the future.” For more information, contact Bleher at lub@uoregon.edu