OWEGO — An historic house at 100 Front St. would become a bed and breakfast under a plan developed by a team of students at Owego-Apalachin Middle School.
The five students, who are members of the Architecture Club, will present their plan March 6, complete with a model and Power Point presentation, at the Architectural Awareness Showcase at Tioga Central Middle School.
The showcase, sponsored by the Tioga County Coalition for Better Schools, has middle school students work in teams to imagine transforming existing buildings in their communities into something else.
Now in its 16th year, the program aims to encourage students’ creativity and give them hands-on experience, said Don Shultz, technology teacher at O-A middle school, who directs the club along with Sue Anderson, the school’s art teacher.
The O-A students have been working since last summer. As part of the project, they did research on the house and created a model of their redesigned building.
“What the kids really like is bending the nails and making the sawdust,” Shultz said.
The students envisioned 100 Front St., which dates from the early part of the 19th century, as a location where people could spend the night, pretending to live in the time period when the house was built.
Melissa Gallagher, Lindsay Field, Cody Barth, R.J. Seymour and Austin Gorick worked on the project they displayed at the school this week.
“It gives us something to do besides classroom work,” Gallagher said.
Other Tioga County schools due to be represented at the Architectural Awareness Showcase are Tioga Central, Newark Valley and Candor.
