AIA Toledo High School Design Competition Blog

2012 Program Posted

2012-01-17T16:00:00.000-05:00

Our competition kickoff meeting is today at 4:00 pm at the AIA Toledo Office. Representatives of Visions of Cullen Park will be present, along with the AIA Toledo High School Design Competition Committee, to reveal this year's project as well as answer any questions you may have about the 62nd (!) annual competition.

If you are unable to attend the competition, don't worry! You can still participate. Just send us an email message and we will put your class on our list. We will distribute two paper program sheets per class, in addition to having the program sheet available online (at the link below).

This year's project is a multi-purpose park building for Cullen Park near Point Place in Toledo. The site has a rich history and a great location, and we look forward to seeing the students' creativity this year!

You can access the program sheet at the following link (select File > Download Original on the screen to download these files to your computer):

2012 Program Sheet (PDF, 5.83 MB, 24x36)

The CAD versions of the site plan are posted at the following links:
DWG format
or
DXF format

Instructors, please send you student list to hsdc.aiatoledo@gmail.com as soon as possible! We will be working to assign advisors to every participating high school before the end of January.

Student participation forms will be updated and posted to this website; we will send announcements when they become available.

We look forward to a great competition this year!

Project Site - Cullen Park

The 2012 Competition is on its way!

2011-12-11T13:12:00.001-05:00

The 2012 AIA Toledo High School Design Competition will be kicking off Tuesday, January 17 at 4:00 pm at the AIA Toledo office (521 W. Woodruff Ave., Toledo). Please join us as we introduce the 2012 competition and discuss our program for this spring!

Note that you are not required to attend the kickoff meeting if you would like to participate; however, we recommend that instructors attend in order to have any initial questions answered quickly and to meet this year's "client" (who will be judging the project!).

Winning boards from the 2011 competition are available for pickup now (please email at the address below to arrange pickup) and will also be available for pick-up at the kickoff meeting.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email the High School Design Competition Committee at hsdc.aiatoledo@gmail.com.

If you need more information regarding the project in general, please see the brochure at this link.

2011 Winning Boards posted...

2011-12-10T13:42:00.000-05:00

By the way, photos of the 2011 winning boards were posted to the following gallery back in May...

2011 Winning Projects

The 2011 numbers (updated!)

2011-04-18T20:24:00.000-04:00

40 High Schools were invited to participate
16 High Schools said “yes”
10 High Schools registered 180 students
10 High Schools turned in 91 student projects
18 students won 25 prizes, representing 7 high schools

April 26 Awards Ceremony

2011-04-04T08:23:00.003-04:00

RSVP to hsdc.aiatoledo@gmail.com by 4/14!

More info:

Date:

Tuesday April 26, 2011

Location:

Crowne Plaza (444 N. Summit St., Toledo)

Time:

5:00 PM

- H.S.D.C. Student Boards Exhibition & Informal Dining

6:15 PM

- Speaker: Nazanin Khodadad (Miami University Department of Architecture)

- Speaker: Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (U.S. House of Representatives)

- Speaker: Mike Szuberla (Toledo GROWS)

7:15 PM

- H.S.D.C. Awards Presentation

AIA Toledo 61^st Annual High School Design Competition

This year’s High School Design Competition project was a classroom and workshop building for a community garden managed by Toledo GROWs. This garden has proven to be a great asset to the local residents in both providing for food and improving community pride. A space is needed at the garden site where maintenance and improvement projects can occur (workshop), and where learning associated with the garden (including cooking classes) can occur. Storage of supplies for the gardens is needed. The building will react to and enhance the adjacent urban infrastructure, complement the existing site amenities, and be functional for both pedestrian and motor vehicle access.

A chicken coop will be shown somewhere on the site. Toledo GROWs is always looking for unique and improved chicken coop designs, and is interested in innovations students may propose.

This project incorporates a building of no more than 4,000 square feet, along with exterior site features.

Ms. Khodadad will talk about the path through school to a career in architecture.

Congresswoman Kaptur and Mr. Szuberla will discuss the importance of community gardens in general, Toledo GROWs in particular, and will let us know about local initiatives in our community.

This annual AIA Toledo tradition has gained the recognition of the National AIA with the receipt of AIA National Component excellence award in 2005 and the continued receipt of AIA National Component Matching Grants (which could increase total student scholarship awards by a total of $1,200). The top two Senior Scholarship Awards ($2,600 and $1,400) are made possible through the Edward E. Packer and Richard Valasek endowed Scholarships with the University of Toledo Foundation. We thank the membership for its support of this program over the years.

We strongly encourage our architect members to attend this highly-supported community outreach program regardless of whether you have participated or not.

Special thanks to the following organizations for making this year’s competition possible

Bowling Green State University, Maumee Valley Section of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Becker Impressions, Harold Roe and Toledo Public Schools

This event is made possible in part through the generous donation of the venue by Crowne Plaza

The boards are in - please RSVP for awards ceremony!

2011-04-01T12:31:00.005-04:00

The boards have been turned in, and we’ve checked them all in for judging in a couple of weeks. Now we encourage you to attend the awards ceremony on Tuesday, April 26 (which should miss most schools’ spring breaks) at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Summit Street in Toledo.

To get an accurate count for the food please RSVP to hsdc.aiatoledo@gmail.com by Thursday, April 14. Attendance is free for students, parents and teachers (and a limited number of guests). We encourage students to attend even if they didn’t turn in a project, so they can listen to our speakers and see the range of projects submitted.

If you have any questions or feedback regarding the competition, or any suggestions on how we might improve the competition, feel free to contact us via email at hsdc.aiatoledo@gmail.com.

2011 Student Information Sheet

2011-03-09T12:56:00.006-05:00

The student information sheet that is to accompany all student entries is at this link. Per the instructions on the program sheet, please include a filled out copy of this form in a sealed envelope on BOTH boards of the student entry.

Senior information has been combined with this form. Seniors only need to fill out that section of the sheet (for our use in determining scholarship eligibility). Please write legibly when filling out this form so the student names are spelled correctly in the awards ceremony program.

Projects are due March 30 at Rossi & Associates, hopefully the students are well along with their designs!

2011 Program Posted

2011-01-10T21:35:00.005-05:00

The 2011 High School Design Competition program is posted!

Our competition kickoff was this afternoon; we would like to thank Mike Szuberla from Toledo Grows and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur for speaking at the event.

This year's program is a new workshop and classroom building for the Oneida Community Garden in Toledo.

The PDF program sheet is now online. You can access it at the following link:

2011 Program Sheet (PDF, 24x36)

Also available is the AutoCAD site plan:

DWG format

DXF format

Instructors, please send your student list to hsdc.aiatoledo@gmail.com as soon as possible! We will be working to assign advisors to every participating high school before the end of January.

Student participation forms will be updated and posted to this website; we will send announcements when they become available.

2011 Kickoff - 1/10/2011, 4 pm at AIA Offices

2011-01-04T14:46:00.002-05:00

A Reminder:

The 2011 AIA Toledo High School Design Competition kick-off meeting will be held on January 10, 2011 at 4:00 p.m. in the AIA Toledo Office located at 521 W. Woodruff Avenue, Toledo, OH 43604. If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at hsdc.aiatoledo@gmail.com.

Last year's winning boards will be returned to the instructors at the kickoff, and we will have additional boards that were left behind at last year's awards ceremony for instructors to pick up.

Also, as a resource for instructors and students, we have several boxes of recent architecture magazines that instructors can take and students can use for inspiration. Feel free to take a few handfuls or a whole box (depending on how many people are interested).

Instructors, if you have an idea of how many students are participating in this year's competition, please email and let us know!

2010 Winning Projects - Comments added to photos

2010-08-21T13:19:00.005-04:00

Judges comments (when we still have them) have been added to the winning project photos, both for the winning students' benefits and for future participants in the competition.

(As we become more "web enabled" we will hopefully get these out closer to the awards presentation).

Click on the photos of each board for the judge's comments. Please let us know if there are any corrections that need to be made.

2010 Winning Projects

Cleveland photos

2010-05-27T13:03:00.000-04:00

Photos from the winners' field trip, May 22:

2010-05-22 winners field trip Cleveland photos

2010 Winners List

2010-04-26T18:40:00.003-04:00

For those who are interested: The 2010 Winners list is posted here!!!

(for best results in printing, hit the "download" or "print" link in just to the upper right side of the document)

Comments will be posted in the next week or two.

Photos of winning boards are posted here:

2010 Winning Projects

The 2010 numbers:

2010-04-19T08:39:00.002-04:00

39 High Schools were invited to participate
21 High Schools said “yes”
17 High Schools registered 280 students
12 High Schools turned in 133 student projects
7 High Schools were represented by the 18 winners (of 22 awards)

All students in the AIA Toledo area were eligible. The only other real requirement is that there is an instructor willing to administer the program to the students.

Projects Submitted and Judged

2010-04-12T13:20:00.002-04:00

We have winners! We received 133 Boards from 12 high schools this year. Winning students will be announced and awards will be presented on Monday, April 19 at the Awards Banquet (see the calendar on this page).

Once piece of advice for students who plan to participate next year is to attend the Awards Banquet. Whether you are a prize winner or not, or even if you did not complete your project this year, it will give you a good idea of the range of projects that are submitted to this competition every year.

PDF Site Plan - to 1" = 20' scale!

2010-03-16T17:04:00.004-04:00

The site plan shown on the program sheet is to a different scale than that required for the program sheet. For those students who are not using a CAD program, you can find a PDF of the site plan to 1" = 20'-0" scale at this link.

Hopefully everyone's advisor has helped them get the site plan to this scale for overlay purposes, and your designs are well along...

2010 Schedule

2010-03-13T15:36:00.004-05:00

The current schedule will eventually be moved to a "Google Calendar"; until then, the remaining events are listed below:

2010 High School Design competition:

January 11, 2010 @ 4:00 pm: Project Kickoff Meeting (Toledo Maritime Center, 1701 Front St.)
January 19, 2010: Official Project Start (We recommend your students are registered by this date!)
Late January (TBD): Site Visit
February 27, 2010: Questions due for publication in the "Q&A" section of the website
February 27, 2010 @ 9:00 a.m. to noon: Rendering Day - Bowling Green State University School of Architecture - demonstration of both traditional and digital rendering & presentation techniques.
March 30, 2010 @ 5:00 pm: Projects Due (Rossi & Associates - 970 S. Byrne Rd., Toledo)
April 19, 2010 @ 5:00 pm: Awards Ceremony (Toledo Maritime Center, 1701 Front St.)
May 22, 2010: Award winners' field trip (Cleveland, Ohio)

2009 Winning Project Photos

2010-03-13T15:34:00.003-05:00

2009 High School Design Competition - Educational Resource Building for the Toledo Zoo.

2009 HSDC Winning Projects

Some recommended software...

2010-03-13T15:24:00.002-05:00

All of this software should work for MS Windows computers; some will also work for Apple & Linux machines. The following links are offered as a convenience by AIA Toledo, and AIA Toledo provides no guarantee of the linked sites' performance or functionality.

Rhino 3D: 3D modeling/rendering program (part sponsor of the BGSU Digital Media award) (student version and trial version available)
Google SketchUp: 3D modeling program (free version available)
ArchiCAD: Building Information Management (BIM) software (student version and trial version available)
AutoCAD: Computer Aided Design/Drafting (CADD) software (trial version available)
Adobe Reader: for reading PDF files (FREE)
GIMP - Gnu Image Manipulation Program (open-source Photoshop alternative) (FREE)
DoubleCAD: Computer Aided Design/Drafting (CADD) software (free version available)
Steel-Link.com Suite: Various design tools, including a foot-inch calculator (FREE)

A few design resources...

2010-03-13T15:23:00.000-05:00

The following links may be helpful to students participating in the High School Design Competition:

AIA Toledo Honor Awards: See what local architects are accomplishing
Wikipedia entry on Architecture
Architectural Record: Architecture news & photos
Archinect.com: Architecture news & photos
Ask Nature: Design inspired by natural processes (Biomimicry)

Example of Toilet room:

2010-03-11T13:01:00.002-05:00

Project-Specific Resources

2010-03-11T12:56:00.003-05:00

The following resources can be used as inspiration and examples of design possibilities:

Clock tower ideas: this website shows some examples of a company that makes clock towers. Please note that the designs shown on this website tend to be smaller than the 85-foot tall tower the program requires.
Decorative paving: Here are three examples of decorative paving to give students a better idea of what is possible:

Questions & Answers

2010-03-11T12:54:00.002-05:00

Why do the roads "in white", from the original colored layout that was given out at the meeting, drastically differ from the site plan posted on the web? Which one is considered the final design? Use the CAD file on the website as the "latest" layout. The color graphic is a "conceptual" layout for the development, which is typically revised several times over the years-long planning process.
Are all of the outside elements such as landscape boxes included in the pavement square footage (2400 sq. ft.)? All of the outside elements may be included in the 2400 sq. ft. of pavement except landscape beds and fountains. The intent of the 2400 sq. ft of hardscape is to provide a space for outdoor events, concerts, gatherings, etc.
The program sheet says the students don't need to make the Clock Tower but provide the base for it. What is the size of the base? How big will the tower be? Also is the tower at the East or West side of the Project site plan? The program requires a minimum of one elevation of the clock tower; the base is all that needs to be shown on the floor/site plan. The tower is approx. 85 feet tall (per program), but we did not require a specific footprint area for the tower at the base because it could vary greatly based on the student’s concept.
Is the square footage of the restrooms (150) for both mens and womens combined or 150 for each? Please use 150 sq. ft. for each toilet room (total 300 sq. ft.).

2010 Program Sheet

2010-03-11T12:41:00.006-05:00

This year's competition project will be an Event Pavilion, Clock Tower and Outdoor Plaza for the Marina District on Toledo's East Side. We would like to thank Dillin Corp. (developer of the Marina District) for their assistance in creating this year's program.

Please see the links below for the 2010 competition. Competition entries are due March 30, 2010 at Rossi & Associates (970 S. Byrne Rd., Toledo).

2010 Competition Program (PDF, 24x36)
This is the program sheet for this year in full 24x36 format. Please note that each school participating will get two (2) paper copies of this form, either at the kickoff meeting or via mail after confirming participation.

Entry forms

These forms are to be turned in with completed project; tape an envelope to the back of EACH BOARD with the following filled out in each; 2 copies total.
Student Information Form and Parents' Media Release (PDF)
Please note that all student entrants need to fill out an information form/ media waiver and attach one copy to the back of each board (as described in the program above).
College/University Choice form (PDF)
Seniors are required to fill out a "College/University Choice" form and include it in each of the envelopes. This is to help the committee in distribution of scholarships; some of the awards require a student to be enrolled in either architecture or a related field, and we would like to know a student's plans in advance. Please note that the boards are judged anonymously, and not based on the student's college choice.

Site Plans - UPDATED 1/27
Site plan scale issues have been corrected with the files below; site plans are at full scale.

DWG format (AutoCAD format)
DXF format (for AutoCAD or other CAD programs)
Images of the site development plans are at the Picasa gallery below:

2010 Resources

About the High School Design Competition

2010-03-11T12:30:00.006-05:00

The AIA Toledo High School Design Competition is the longest running program of its kind in the
history of the American Institute of Architects. It is a nationally recognized, award winning program and we are very proud of the accomplishments of all of our students. Over $10,000 in scholarships and prizes were awarded last year and we intend to award just as much this year!

AIA Toledo gives the students a hypothetical building project and asks them to produce a presentation-quality design board. Each school is assigned a professional advisor (local architects, depending on availability) to help guide the students through the design process. Creativity is encouraged, and students immerse themselves in the profession of architecture.
When the presentation boards are completed, a panel of Architects judges the completed projects based on how they functionally and visually address the building project.

The requirements of the typical program don’t just stop at the building; the entire site is a concern of the designer. To help reflect this, The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), Maumee Valley Section, provides representatives who judge the layout of the site, and assigns advisors to guide landscape design along with the architects.

Recognizing that the ability to convey a design is of great importance, the projects are judged
separately on their graphic qualities. Harold Roe, AIA, noted architectural illustrator and artist, has judged the graphic presentations for many years, and continues to present an award for the
best overall graphic presentation every year.

Originally started in 1950 with 23 entries from three high schools, the competition has grown to
as many as 206 entries from as many as 25 area high schools. Last year, the competition received 154 entries from 13 participating high schools. Projects have been as varied as a Parking Lot Office (1950), to a Toledo Automotive Museum (1999), to a fast food restaurant (1977), to an Architect’s Office (1968 & 2007).

In 2006, the competition obtained matching scholarship grants from the AIA National Component, allowing us to double the amount of prize money for the top senior entrants. The
AIA National Component 1:1 matching grant program allowed us to award the top senior a $5,200.00 scholarship to an accredited school of architecture, while the runner-up received a total scholarship of $2,800.00. Cash prizes and books are awarded to the winners of the Freshman/Sophomore and Junior divisions, as well as the Landscape and Graphics categories.

Follow this link for a PDF brochure further explaining this year's competition.

If you would like more information, please email the competition’s co-chairs at hsdc.aiatoledo@gmail.com.

Migration to new HSDC website

2010-03-10T13:40:00.002-05:00

We will be migrating the High School Design Competition website to this address, and we will begin to post in a “blog” format. Please update your web links accordingly, and if you like the new site please let us know here.

High School Design Competition Blog

2009-01-21T10:19:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the AIA Toledo High School Design Competition weblog! We will intermittently post questions & answers, program revisions & clarifications, resources & examples and other items of interest to the participants of the AIA Toledo High School Design Competition at this location.

The AIA Toledo High School Design Competition is a scholarship competition for aspiring architects, open to high school students in the Toledo area.

http://aiatoledo.org/