Camtastic November Newsletter | College of Arts and Media | SIU

School of Architecture alum Thad Heckman giving Carbondale and the University a facelift

Call Thad Heckman a Renaissance man and he gets embarrassed. Sure, he’s an architect  who has designed many buildings around Carbondale; he’s a car collector, a 3-cushion billiards player, a supporter ofcoral reefs and an amateur astronomer who happens to write some pretty nifty stories, but the word “Renaissance” makes him uncomfortable.

“I will leave that use up to your tactful discretion,” he said during a recent interview.

We chose Heckman for this CAM highlight because he is the designer of the $23 million Southern Illinois Multimodel Station (SIMMS), a multi-use transit hub set to open in early 2025. But, what we discovered in the process is that he is also the designer of the just-announced Tedrick Welcome Center at SIU. Plus, he’s doing a new 3-D printed building that will house a new Visitor’s Center  adjacent to the R. Buckminster Fuller Dome Homehere in Carbondale.

With SIMMS, there’s a lot to coordinate. The station will house the following:

Transportation related opportunities:

• Amtrak train service
• 5 area local transit services that will serve 28 counties
• Southern Illinois University’s Saluki Express transit service
• Greyhound
• Electric Scooters
• Long and short-term bike storage
• Non-Transportation Services:
• Southern Illinois University Welcome Center
• Carbondale Tourism Office
• Co-Working Spaces
• Man-Tra-Con Workforce Program Office

SIMMS project manager Mark  Bollmann said, “The Floor Plan consists primarily of the transportation related functions – namely, Amtrak, the local transit providers, various Ride-Share programs, as well as a Greyhound bus service office. Additional space off the main concourse will accommodate multi-purpose spaces that can serve future retail, commercial, or community needs. Public use facilities as well as mechanical and support spaces are included in the design.”

Heckman considered going with a contemporary design for SIMMS but realized a more historical approach  seemed more fitting.

“The traditional stations still look  great no matter what century they're in,” he said.  …and that meant SIMMS needed to have a tower.

“So, I did the tower. [It] is lined up on the centerline of Elm Street. We don't know how Elm Street is going to evolve 30 to 60 years from now and to just glance down the street at the tower beyond for the duration will place-mark the new SIMMS for years to come.

For that reason, Heckman considers the station a 100-year building, meaning it has to be functional and aesthetically pleasing for a century or more.

“When I design, I want to try to be 5000 feet up looking at the broad picture and ‘how's this going to pass down through the years, while still also satisfying ridership and the usual day-to-day activities. It's a lot of fun and challenging,” he said, involving the city, Amtrak and allied partners with the entire design team to determine the design solutions.

Heckman  thinks a lot about the broad picture even in his free time. When he was a pre-schooler, he wanted to be an architect or a marine biologist. His studio has a 400-gallon coral reef aquarium and a large shell collection started when he was five years old  - and he gives a lot of thought to how the world’s wild reefs can be protected.

“The coral reefs are certainly in trouble, and I even thought of an organization I call Inland Seas, in which we band together, all the advanced reef keepers like myself, organized to cultivate corals for restocking the wild,” he said.

For fun, Heckman plays billiards. But don’t confuse that with pool.

“Billiards  has no pockets and you play with three balls and it's an old game, much older than pool,” he said. For relaxation, I play in my studio on the table that I learned on and purchased from Gatsby’s Billiards way back when it closed down.

Heckman said he’d like more time to devote to collecting heirloom cars. He’s particularly a fan of his first car – a ’67 Oldsmobile Toronado, and the car it emulates, the old Cord from his stepfather. Made in Auburn, Indiana, his ’36 Cord 810 has one very specific part that may make it one of only three produced, but he hasn’t had a chance to research it thoroughly yet.

“So, I have a little mystery, a little bit of automotive historical mystery,” he said.

Heckman said talking about one of his old jobs can make car collectors cry; “I used to crush cars”. 
“Some folks, upon graduating high school, will perhaps go to Europe, or the military or the Peace Corps as their internship on life,” he said. “However, I consider my internship in life was working through college and for the two years after graduating college as the Crushing Foreman in a salvage company (aka: junk yard). I learned about heavy machinery as the operator of an articulating loader, a very valuable experience that I would prefer not to do again.”

Heckman is also a published author. He has written everything from short tales of his high school senior trip escapade sneaking into the inner sanctum of the Chicago Playboy  Building’s private club (and promptly being kicked out) to attending a ‘run’ with professional astronomers at the Mt. Palomar Observatory, to a serious work on the history of the Dome Home. Titled “Bucky’s Dome” with co-author Cary O’Dell, Mr. Heckman less formally calls it the “dome tome.”

His love affair with the geometry of the dome also factored into his SIMMS design.

Bollman said, “Thad brought a traditional train station design which fits in with the historic look of the downtown area. He also incorporated some of the SIU and R. Buckminster Fuller influences.” 
Bollman has been very pleased with Heckman’s work on SIMMS.

“He is 100% vested in the project and is in constant contact with me during the construction phase. Thad, and the entiredesign team, takes a very personal hands-on approach,” he said.

Heckman, who just turned 67, is certainly leaving his mark on the Carbondale community and at SIU. He is a class of ’79 alum of the Design Department  and has taught Architecture at the university for more than two decades. Though he retired in 2017, it “didn’t stick” and he’s once again in the classroom as a Senior Lecturer.

“I tell my students…that the architect is also sometimes somewhat like the orchestra leader, that you're listening to all the instruments. In this case, you've got Amtrak and you've got mechanical concerns, and you've got all this stuffaround you going on, and somebody's got to, you know, ask the violin section to pull up,.…and get all of this in concert on where we're heading with the design.” In the end, you hope for a successful composition.