Helping students build New York's future

When the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 flattened St. Nicholas Church, architect Tim Maldonado and his City University of New York students were there to help. When a playground for impaired children went up, he helped guide the design. He is behind the planning of a hospital in El Salvador. And it’s his students at New York City College of Technology/CUNY, where he chairs the Architectural Technology Department, who are working on replacement housing for Sri Lankans hit by the tsunami.

Maldonado has a belief—he calls it an obsession—that teaching architecture must involve practical experience. He pairs that passion with a commitment to good works.

It all began, the Professional Staff Congress/AFT member says, when a fellow faculty member needed help renovating a preschool on a shoestring budget. Maldonado, who maintains a small private practice, whipped out a classroom design and called in a few favors to provide the basics, including lumber, paint, carpeting, painting and artwork. Then he was contacted to plan a Down syndrome-friendly playground on Long Island.

This time he worked with his students to offer 20 design solutions. That generated media interest, a New York Times article and a $25,000 donation from singer Billy Joel.

Next, in the mid-1980s, Maldonado turned his attention to Metrotech, a $2 billion project in Brooklyn near the college. He suggested his students build models complete with elevations. Their effort was so successful that Chase Manhattan and others mounted an exhibit and commissioned a $55,000 student study of the neighborhood.

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was one of the most moving enterprises. Through a faculty member contact, three of Maldonado’s classes produced options for rebuilding the 170-year-old building, crushed on Sept. 11 by the south tower of the World Trade Center. Their work helped ensure that the institution will not be displaced by new development.

Not long afterward, a philanthropist friend approached Maldonado for help designing a hospital in El Salvador. The idea was to provide a work base for American nurses and doctors, who frequently make short-term trips to that country to provide surgery not available in the remote areas of El Salvador.

Again, Maldonado involved his students. Others from the department of art and advertising designed a brochure. A jury of architects chose a design by a student coincidentally born in El Salvador. The project is pending.

The trend continues this year. When Daniel Libeskind, the architect most recently known for his World Trade Center design in lower Manhattan, came to lecture at NYCCT, he invited students to help redesign a small town in Sri Lanka battered by the tsunami. Six students teamed up with the high-profile architect to follow through.

The stories continue, but the theme is the same: Maldonado calls it “hands-on learning with a purpose.” The formula has worked.

Four years ago, the architectural technology program expanded to become a four-year degree, with an emphasis on renovating “real projects,” says Maldonado. Enrollment has shot from 325 to 575 students, “and we keep on growing.” Students are often mid-career individuals—this year, a dentist and a pilot among them—who have returned to school to study architecture.

“It’s fun because you have a 19-year-old sitting next to a 55-year-old in the classroom,” he says. And students are in demand once they graduate.

It’s that practical experience Maldonado reveres which makes all the difference.