OASIS arranges to build brand new home

Building based on design by senior Aaron Campbell

The OASIS animal shelter got its start from student initiative, and now six years later, it is getting its new home with student help as well.

Senior Aaron Campbell, under guidance from Visiting Professor of Art Stanley Matthews, designed the new OASIS animal shelter this fall. In a few weeks, after the project gets final approval from the Oberlin City Council, construction will begin on the building.

"I feel like I've gotten one of the most invaluable lessons in architecture," Campbell said. He said that he has learned to understand the objectivity needed to be a good architect. "It couldn't be any Disneyland bullshit," Campbell said.

Campbell first thought about the project in the Spring, when he and Evan Bennent, OC'96, designed a new shelter as part of their Environmental Sculpture class. At the time they didn't know if the project would actually come through.

But, when the OASIS shelter staff approached Matthews with the request for him to design the new shelter free of charge, he thought of handing the opportunity to one of his students.

When Matthews talked to Campbell about the project, he told him he would never look at a pencil line in the same way again. "Once you realize it will really be built, you have a different appreciation for it," Mathews said.

Mathews said that he thinks there is no reason for this to be the first project of its kind at Oberlin. He said he would like to see similar opportunities for students, possibly coordinated with the Center for Service and Learning. "Obviously we can't compete with the paying architecture firms," Mathews said.

Vera Opal, manager of the OASIS shelter, said, "It's really nice for Oberlin College and the students." She said that she was especially pleased that this continues the trend of student involvement with the shelter. It was organized six years ago by student Shari Calina, and students have continued to be the main source of volunteers for the shelter.

The new shelter will be located at the waste water treatment plant on Highway 58. "It'll be a real building instead of a shack," Opal said. The building is designed to have 17 cages, heat, hot water, a restroom, an office and outside runs for the dogs.

Campbell said, however, that a goal of his work was to retain some of the stark and unwelcoming nature of the old building, as well as improve on the facilities. "We shouldn't think this is a good place for animals," he said.

The shell of the new building will be straight galvanized aluminum, and while the windows will let in enough light, Campbell said that the building won't be very light.

"We had to strip down to the basics," Campbell said. The first drawings Campbell did were for a cinder block building, but that building would have cost too much. "We would have loved it," Opal said of the original building, but there were simply not enough funds. Building is scheduled to begin on the shelter in the next weeks, and Campbell said that after it starts, the construction shouldn't take very long. The shell will be built free of charge by contractor George Clark, and the interior work will be done with volunteer labor.

Place to hang your leash: The new shelter, conceived by senior Aaron Campbell (courtesy of Aaron Campbell)