The AIA and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) announced the winners of their second annual AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) Student Design Competition to coincide with the announcement of the 2016 AIA COTE Top Ten Green Projects last week. Started in recognition that today's architecture students will inherit tomorrow's environment and the design challenges associated with changing climates, the AIA COTE Student Design Competition recognizes 10 student projects that demonstrate excellence in measures such as design and innovation, land use and site ecology, energy flows and energy future, and the concept of long life, loose fit. Judges evaluated student work on 10 such measures and rewarded projects that provide architectural solutions to protect the environment.
The jury for the AIA COTE 2015-2016 Student Design Competition included Lance Jay Brown, of City College of New York; Sierra Rose Jensen, of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Vivian Loftness, of Carnegie Mellon University; James Pfeiffer, of BNIM; and Bill Sturm, of Serena Sturm Architects.
To view each of the AIA COTE 2015-2016 Student Design Competition winners in depth, click on the links below or visit ARCHITECT's Project Gallery.
Regenerating Water Avenue
University of Oregon: Lacey Aley, Alex Collins, Addison Estrada
Faculty Sponsors: Bill Leddy, Marsha Maytum, Roger Ota
Jury comment: This winning project has beautiful integration of the landscape and natural components with the building, forming a unique destination. The choice of using reclaimed wood was appreciated as a sustainable material choice. The design and site selection is a terrific relationship between the bridge and the building, creating a dialogue in a broader landscape. Engaging people in the environmental zones, with forced thermal change experience is inviting to the public.
The Living Link
Iowa State University: Mengwei Liu, Anastasia Sysoeva
Faculty Sponsor: Ulrike Passe
Jury comment: This winning submission has taken an infill site and introduced density, leaving enough space to include the community. The students have successfully integrated the building with the public space and the neighborhood with a variety of social accommodations. The submission successfully addressed all ten of the measures and incorporated them into a beautiful designed project.
Tether
University of Oregon: Tim Schneider
Faculty Sponsor: Gerald Gast
Jury comment: Tether as a title choice is terrific, because this project tethers the city and community to the landscape and research center to the Mississippi River. The ten measures are clear and incorporated into the submissions design as well as distinctly explained. The environmental restoration and renewal is a nice evolution to an under-utilized site.
Creativity Sustaining Community
University of Maryland: Erin Barkman, Emily Latham
Faculty Sponsors: Carl Bovill, Peter Noonan, and Jordan Goldstein
Jury comment: This project captures a very difficult site that would typically have been abandoned or ignored. The green aspect and building design is thoroughly conceived and technically demanding. The notion to break up the masses of the building accessible components creates compelling space. The student’s renderings are powerful, well created and conceived.
Banding for Knowledge
University of Texas At San Antonio: Daniel Rodriguez Suarez, Isaias Garcia Coronado
Faculty Sponsors: Ian Caine, Rahman Azari
Jury comment: This engaging project's reuse of a readapted big box store is a brilliant environmental solution that can be an example for many locations. The students successfully erased the lines between indoor and outdoor by setting up a rhythm of both building and landscape manipulations to the existing conditions that naturally leads people in and out of the building and site. This subtraction of the building and parking lot allowed the design to have a whole new world.
The Art of Eco: Seattle University Integrated Visual Arts Center
University of Washington: Kejia Zhang, Xiaoxi Jiao
Faculty Sponsor: David Strauss
Jury comment: This project takes design guts to restore, readapt, and reuse a historic building giving it new life and new energy. There is a clear distinction of what is new and what is old, while successfully integrating both with green expertise. The student’s effective adaptation of the existing building with the new allows for the public space to capture much needed Seattle daylight and fresh air.
O2O4W: Oxygen House in the Old Fourth Ward District
Kennesaw State University: Laura Sherman
Faculty Sponsor: Edwin E. Akins II
Jury comment: This winning project's site location, a Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial site, is a sensible choice for the lung cancer community center. The adaptive reuse of an underutilized pool and historical context set the stage for the underscored incorporation of simple, elegant and sophisticated details of the project. The comprehensive environmental design with layers of thought and sensitivity to the user is articulate.
Charlotte's Sustainable Cooperative Center: Extending Charlotte's Cultural Corridor
University of North Carolina at Charlotte: Jessica Nutz
Faculty Sponsor: Kyoung-Hee Kim
Jury comment: The student's sensitive place making with the integrated kinetic façade make this project excellent. The dynamic introduction of sunlight and ventilation through an atrium is inviting and well designed. The clear integration of environmental qualities is notable and well integrated in the design. The exterior of a highly crafted beautiful and simple wall evolves this project into something unusual and wonderful.
Inverted Ecologies
California College of the Arts: Vaama Joshi, Shirin Monshipouri
Faculty Sponsors: Margaret Ikeda, Evan Jones, Adam Marcus
Jury comment: This captivating project is a view into a science fiction version of what might be a way to engage a population on the reconstruction of natural fish habits and wetlands. The student put the emphasis on the visitors which, in this design, are surrounded by nature. The project's gentle confluents of objects and surfaces are clear and carefully designed, despite its monochromatic presentation. The systematic incorporation of environmental expertise into the design are well conceived.
Augmented Tides
California College of the Arts: Rafael Berges, Jared Clifton
Faculty Sponsors: Margaret Ikeda, Evan Jones, Adam Marcus
Jury comment: This winning design is a rich elaboration of ecological conditions and treatments in the restoration of a sensitive location, Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, Calif. The building works as an elegant environmental machine using water throughout the design. The students did a wonderful job of making it a destination while conceiving what looks like a sophisticated water-processing plant.
To view each of the AIA COTE 2015-2016 Student Design Competition winners in depth, click on the links below or visit ARCHITECT's Project Gallery. Read about the 2014-2015 COTE Student winners.
