October 4, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ray Ladd
College of Architecture and Environmental Design
805-756-7432
rladd@calpoly.edu
Steel Designs Garner International Awards for Cal Poly Architecture Students
SAN LUIS OBISPO – Steel may be one of the most common materials in the world, but its uses range from ordinary to extraordinary. Cal Poly Architecture students Kristian Fosholt and Greg Taylor proved the latter with design projects that recently won awards at the 2006-07 ACSA/AISC Steel Design Competition.
Fosholt, working with Architecture Professor Jonathan Reich, earned a third place and cash awards in the Student/Open Category for his visionary design called “Of A Freeway,” which proposed integration of a multi-modal transit center into the large amount of single-use land occupied by the I-405 and I-105 freeways near Los Angeles International Airport.
Described by the competition jury as “technically and visually ambitious resolution of a challenging site with well explored use of steel,” Fosholt’s design was strongly influenced by his prior year studying in CSU's Florence Italy program with Cristiano Toraldo di Francia of “Superstudio” fame, his involvement in the History Channel’s “City of the Future” design challenge, and also by Professor Reich’s research on freeway “lid” projects.
Taylor’s project, called Pulling Tendons, earned an honorable mention for his proposed design of a Museum of Steel. Taylor, working with Architecture Professor Thomas Fowler, was challenged to design a museum on underdeveloped waterfront property in Pittsburgh, Pa., keeping in mind the current needs of the city, the compatibility of the new structures with their historical neighbors, and the building’s ultimate acceptability into the existing urban fabric.
The winners were chosen from among 400 submissions from more than 50 universities in Canada, Mexico and the United States.
The prize-winning projects will be exhibited at the March, 2008 ACSA Annual Meeting in Houston, Texas and the May, 2008 American Institute of Architects Convention in Boston, Massachusetts. In addition, they will be published in a competition summary catalog, available from ACSA in Fall 2007.
The competition is sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) and is administered by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA).
For more information or photos of the student designs, contact Ray Ladd at 756-7432 or rladd@calpoly.edu.
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