Major Design

“I came to Holy Cross thinking I wanted to be a lawyer, and freshman year I took political science classes and realized that that was not where I wanted to go,” Blaise Carino ’06 recently recalled.

Carino was in a sculpture class with one of his friends, Katie Mahoney ’05, who had designed her own major in architectural design. After talking with Joanna Ziegler, professor of visual arts, he decided that he, too, would build his own major. Three years later he has presented his thesis “Principles of Architectural Design,” for which he designed a 900 sq. foot apartment.

Carino, from Greenville, S.C., is one of 34 students currently at Holy Cross who have developed their own multidisciplinary major through the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies. In consultation with two faculty members from different departments, students select 10 to 14 courses from at least three different departments that are relevant to the theme of their majors. They provide curriculum pages showing which courses they will take when, along with a rationale statement describing their major. The curriculum must be appropriate as a liberal arts major (rather than a vocational major) and CISS only approves multidisciplinary minors and majors (rather than disciplinary programs of study).

“It’s been very challenging and a great experience,” says Carino, who has taken classes in the visual arts, science and philosophy departments. “It’s been a fiercely independent program but one of the great things about it is that you forge some really great relationships along the way. It really gave me an opportunity to explore all that Holy Cross had to offer because I was able to take such a wide range of classes and it taught me how to be self-motivated.”

This past semester, Carino interned with Pawlowski Associates, an architectural design firm located in Providence, R.I., that Ziegler had introduced him to.

“I went in to talk about architecture, working, plans for the future, and what was originally going to be a 45 minute meeting turned into five hours of talking about architecture,” says Carino about his first discussion with owner Paul Pawlowski. “We worked out an internship and recently he talked about bringing me on full time after graduation.”

Carino’s responsibilities have increased steadily. He started the internship doing research, filing and other paperwork duties. Most recently, he’s been creating digital 3-D models of proposed buildings. The firm’s location in Providence, which is undergoing a renaissance, turned out to be a perfect match for Carino’s interests.

“I’m very interested in the revivalist movement going on in Providence right now. Providence is a similar city to how Worcester is now — very industrial, lots of old mills and factories. And there’s some really great architecture there, like amazing buildings with exposed brick, hardwood floors, huge industrial windows and large wooden support beams overhead. I’m particularly interested in renovating these brick buildings and turning them into apartments and condos.”

Carino’s thesis on designing small spaces is what initially attracted him to pursue an architectural design major.

“I’m very interested in small space design and the fact that it really pushes the architect to think about and contemplate every design decision they make. Every aspect of the design needs to be pushed two or three times over in terms of functionality. Any decision I made, I would try to make a particular space serve as two functions. For example, in the apartment I designed for my thesis, I have a partition area, which serves as a foyer before you enter the main space in the apartment. But it also serves as a functional purpose to allow people to drop off groceries in the kitchen, for instance.”

Why is he interested in small spaces when the national trend is to build excessively large homes?

“I’ve seen a slight turning point in contemporary architecture away from McMansions to small spaces,” he says. “Decades ago, there was a flight from the cities to suburbia. I’m finding young people in my generation — young professionals — are moving back to the city and because of inflation, limited space, and strict budgets, living in a relatively small space is a practical solution. In terms of architecture, it forces you to think about your design more as opposed to these larges mansions where you have room to put whatever you want. In small spaces, you have to consider every cubic inch of space to utilize it the best you can.”

Although his newfound job may not allow him to work with strictly small spaces, Carino says he’ll likely pursue his dream of working with residential spaces. After gaining some field experience, he will apply to graduate school to earn a master’s degree in architectural design.

“He follows in a line of outstanding students in architectural studies, each of whom have designed the major in his or her own way, with the guidance of faculty such as Jody Ziegler and Virginia Raguin and Chris Dustin,” says Richard Matlak, director of the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies. “All have gone on to grad school in architecture.”