Architecture Winners

Hello Everyone! Some of you may have noticed a cool new seating area on our campus - near the science building. I wanted to take a moment to explain the amazing accomplishment of two of our students. Last December (2015), two grade 11 students, Fo Wu and Jasmine Yu began doing designs for an design competition sponsored by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. Here you can see their beautiful preliminary drawings.

After making it to the next phase they were tasked with creating a 3D model. They used computer design and 3D printing.

After Spring Break, Fo and Jasmine were thrilled to learn that they were selected as one of the top 3 finalists, and that their design was going to be physically built. Because it would exist in real life, they were teamed up with Greg Damant at Cascadia Architects, who would mentor them through the final phases of their design.

This was obviously a huge learning moment for them as they worked within an actual design firm.

The carpentry students at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, took their unique designs and did an outstanding job of building the organic and curving shapes.

As you can see many professionals from across Vancouver Island contributed to Fo and Jasmine’s work. The girls had a lot of thank you cards to write.

Here is their installed “parklet” - a small public seating space - designed to fit where a car would park.

The parklet was unveiled during a major national architecture conference in Nanaimo. Fo and Jasmine were there, of course, and were thrilled to have the chance to see people from the public - and professional architects - enjoying their design over a cup of coffee or lunch.

The biggest prize for them was probably that day - as they networked and picked the brains of men and women who work in a field they aspire to. However a few days later was still the actual contest announcement. Of the 3 final parklets that were built, who would win? Who had the best design?

It was of no surprise to me or their Architect mentor that Fo and Jasmine’s bold, modern and unique design won the day. They were a little embarrassed that they had chosen the team name Monster Club but with the winning design and cash prizes for both of them and the school, they can call themselves whatever they want.

What is really cool for us is that we were able to move this student-designed structure to our campus. As far as I know this is the first student designed area at the Senior School. We are super proud of their work and we hope you enjoy the space they designed when you are in the quad on sunny days.