Architectural Project Is Pretty Far Out

A design project by Orange Coast College’s Architecture Club is an intriguing mix of scientific principles with flights of fancy: a disaster shelter inspired by an alleged UFO sighting.

Using donated materials and volunteer labor, the students have crafted a 600-pound steel cylinder that rolls for easy transport, sleeps nine on insulated fold-down beds, stores plenty of gear and boasts a lookout point on top.

At 12 feet tall and 8 feet in diameter, the pod was designed to serve as living quarters when homes are lost to catastrophe.

“If there is a disaster, you can roll it out and have people live in it for a period of time,” said student Parrish Carter, 27, of Costa Mesa, lead designer.

Carter admits that his inspiration came in part from UFO episodes of the popular TV show “The X-Files” and Internet pictures of the former Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellites.

He made some rough sketches for his classmates. “I didn’t make any blueprints. I had everyone build this out of my head,” he said.

Still, after two months during which the club spent $2,000--its entire annual budget--all the pieces fit.

“If it’s shaky, we add to it,” Carter said. “We’re not structural engineers, we’re architects.”

The project has been good practical experience for students who more typically spend their time drafting and drawing, team members said.

“It’s a very good learning experience, learning materials, putting them together,” said architecture major Deanna Ibrahim, 19, of Fountain Valley. “As an architect, you usually just hear about the materials. We’re able to use them.”

To prove the success of their design, an eight-student team will sleep aboard the craft during an architecture contest April 17-20 at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

About 55 community colleges and high schools are competing in the annual event, which required participants to use what they make. OCC won last year with a bamboo hut.

Cal Poly picks the theme for the competition. This being the 50th year of the contest, students had to base their designs on an artifact found in the year of the first event, 1947.

OCC students picked a UFO sighting in Roswell, N.M., an incident mentioned frequently on “The X-Files” and in last year’s blockbuster movie “Independence Day.”

Some people believe that a spacecraft crashed in the desert that year and that its parts--and possibly occupants--were hidden by the government. Others speculate that the incident was a failed military project.

OCC students will take their craft to San Luis Obispo next week by conventional rather than cosmic means: on a trailer pulled by a truck.