MUNCIE, Ind. -- From cyber cafes and community centers to an environmental school, Ball State University architecture and planning students designed new visions for south Asia this spring.

The 20 participants in the Polyark international field study program didn’t just view interesting buildings, landscapes and communities in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. They also put the pencil to the paper, working with Asian students on plans for community improvements in those countries.

Non-Western cultures and customs provided plenty of obstacles for the Ball State students’ design work, as did the less-than-ideal working conditions and resources in south Asia.

"It was an interesting challenge to do drawings there," said fourth-year planning major Carryn Pierce of Grafton, Wis. Fans set up because of the heat blew the students’ paper, the tables they drew on were not always smooth, and light and time were limited.

Language barriers also challenged students in their work.

"We couldn’t talk to the people, but we needed their input on the project," said third-year architecture student Colin Drake from Arlington Heights, Ill.

Even so, the Ball State College of Architecture and Planning’s nine-week trip succeeded in exposing the architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning students to design theory, history and practice in a dramatically different region of the world.

Led by urban planning professor Nihal Perera and landscape architecture professor Alisa Coffin, the group went beyond the "tourist mode" and participated in the region’s life and culture. Students worked on five "real-world" studio design projects.

In India, student pairs were asked to design a "cyber cafe" where residents could use computers to access the Internet. But most of the local residents were not familiar with that kind of technology, and many cafe patrons would be tourists.

"That’s not the typical environment where you would see this kind of development," Pierce explained. "We really had to figure out how to make it work and put it in a neighborhood that was very crowded."

In Nepal, Ball State and Nepali students worked together to identify a site, develop a program and design a community center for the town of Sankhu. Their designs were juried by three Nepali faculty members, including Ball State alumnus Don Treese of Nepal Engineering College, and the two Polyark directors.

Some designs proposed new community centers with space for meetings, crafts, materials and a health clinic, while others tried to improve existing community centers. Students also examined neglected community resources such as canals.

"We wanted to bring back some of these cultural features that have been lost over time," said fourth-year landscape architecture student Jason Gilliland of Angola, Ind. "We looked at taking the forms’ original uses and altering them a bit to come up with a whole village renewal."

In Nepal’s tourist town of Pokhara, students redesigned the cross section of the main street and developed connections between the main street and the nearby lake and other natural features such as the Himalayan mountain range.

A project in Sri Lanka involved designing an environment-based school in one of the newly developed Mahaweli towns. Jurors included four Sri Lankan faculty members, and local students participated in the review session.

In the Sri Lankan city of Colombo, the Ball State group learned about the Urban Development Authority’s newest plan and had to identify three problems and opportunities facing Colombo.

They explored ways to improve the city in terms of tourism, waterways, open spaces, streets, traffic and housing.

Sri Lankan faculty members attended the jury, and the students’ work was presented at Moratuwa University.

Throughout the trip, the Polyark students maintained sketchbook logs in which they responded to design problems and wrote about the history and philosophy of places they visited.

"The sketchbook logs provided a place to bring together the different courses but gave an opportunity to show how learning takes place across the board in each discipline," Coffin said.

The Polyark group will share its educational experiences in the May 4 presentation "Teaching and Learning on the Road: The Experience and Lessons of Polyark XIV in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and London" at 10 a.m. in Architecture Building Room 101.

Another presentation will be scheduled next fall. More information on the trip can also be found on the World Wide Web at web.bsu.edu/perera/index.htm.

(NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information about this story, contact Nihal Perera at (765) 285-8606 or e-mail: 00mnperera@bsu.edu.)