Winners Announced from Norwich University's Third Annual International Architecture and Design Competition for High School Students

Winners’ names have now been made public, with 15 fortunate participants taking home Norwich University scholarships that ranged in value from $2,000 to $8,000. The competition, which was sponsored by the Norwich University’s School of Architecture + Art, part of the College of Professional Schools, tasked participants with one ambitious endeavor: to design a ‘Story Space’, a place for storytelling. Contestants set out to produce a singular, open-air architectural structure that embraced the use of space in two different ways: storytelling for a small intimate gathering of 5 people and a large public gathering of 50. The brief was to design dynamic and functional outdoor spaces for performance and congregating.

Students were invited to participate in the competition as an individual or in a team of up to four members. Norwich received 87 registrations with 40 completed submissions, from 16 states (Alabama, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Vermont) and eight countries abroad (Bahrain, Egypt, Ghana, India, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda, and Uruguay). Submissions were awarded first, second, and third place with five honorable mentions.

The first-place prize is an $8,000 Norwich University scholarship. The other scholarships are $4,000 for second place, $3,000 for third place, and $2,000 Norwich scholarship for each complete entry. Submissions were divided and judged separately between high school aged students and college transfer students.

“This competition has become the highlight of our academic year and we are always excited to see what Einsteinian design concepts will be birthed through this competition,” College of Professional Schools Dean Aron Temkin said. “The participants for our third year really took design to a new level as they sought to blend art and science through sound architectural design.”

A seven-person jury judged the entries and announced the awards at a December 10 event online. The jury included College of Professional School’s Dean, Aron Temkin; School of Architecture + Art Assistant Professor of Architecture, Zach Seibold; Associate Director of the School of Architecture + Art, Tolya Stonorov; CityLab: Berlin Program Director and architect Christian Dengler; Brett Cox, Charles A. Dana Professor of English; Sarah Emily Colby, CEO of Colby Company LLC, Engineering & Design; Shaili Patel of Colby Company LLC, Engineering & Design; and School of Architecture + Art alumni, Kenechukwu “Kene” Onwe.

The Winners

Kimberly Salvo and Sabrina De Leon, of Uruguay, took first prize for their project, called CORAZA.

CORAZA, designed to be showcased in a park in Uruguay’s Parque Riviera, showcased the duos gift for creating minimal elegance. The project, once fully realized, will be a multifunctional outdoor space, covered, and located in the center of Parque Rivera Park.

The design duo both from the same region of Uruguay and saw CORAZA as a way of marrying beauty and functionality to take one of Parque River’s most popular parks to its next level.

Sharing in the first-place honors with Salvo and De Leon was Blake Oberbauer of Tiburon, California. Oberbauer’s design was a multidimensional space with kinetic features that responded to the differing needs of the audience size.

Neri Landi, of Greenbrae, California, placed second for a design he calls, Feather Story Pavilion, Landi’s concept took its inspiration from Kinetic Architecture, creating a design of moveable panels that could adapt easily to the use of any space.

Kiera Lensing, of Larkspur, California, took third place for a design that features a triangular performance space resting within the heart of the iconic California forest, Muir Woods. 

Honorable mentions went to Raveesh Goss of Saratoga Springs, NY, Calvin Caspersen of Corte Madera, CA, Nora Dunigan of Deerfield, NH, Eric Sretavan of Bel Tiburon, CA, and Rylie Harper of Bath, ME.

Transfer Winners included First Place - Ziza Tasy, Leanche Mullemba, and Kevin Mullemba of Uganda; Second Place – Ayush Patel of India; and Third Place – Samuel Agyemang of Ghana.

* * *

About Norwich University’s Design+Build Collaborative

As the only university in northern New England to offer integrated professionally accredited programs in Architecture, Business, Engineering, Construction, and Nursing, Norwich’s Design+Build Collaborative calls on students to “act as well as conceive” and create solutions for local, regional, and global challenges. For more than 21 years, our students have been addressing Vermont community needs through the construction of full-scale projects.

About Norwich University

Norwich University is a diversified academic institution that educates traditional-age students and adults in a Corps of Cadets and as civilians. Norwich offers a broad selection of traditional and distance-learning programs culminating in baccalaureate and graduate degrees. Norwich University was founded in 1819 by Captain Alden Partridge of the U.S. Army and is the oldest private military college in the United States of America. Norwich is one of our nation's six senior military colleges and the birthplace of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). www.norwich.edu

Media contact:
Saraa Kami
Director of Communications
SKami@norwich.edu  
Follow us on Twitter @norwichnews