It’s not everyday that mundane school projects, usually seen as drudgeries, receive national attention and are proclaimed a vision.
Yet that’s what happened to architecture senior Sarah Jester who was recognized for her Architecture 351 class project by the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture conference in Chicago.
“I put my whole self into that project and it feels very good to get recognition for all that hard work,” Jester said. “I created something that was actually meaningful to other people, and that feels awesome.”
Jester was surprised to win, as she found out about her success while working at her internship.
“I checked my e-mail right before leaving … I turned to the architect behind me and said, ‘I think I just won an award,’” she said.
Titled the “Inhabitable Book Library for San Francisco,” her project won the award of distinction in architectural design. The project was completed as an assignment in Architecture 351, normally the first design studio architecture juniors take.
The objective of her project was to design a hypothetical satellite library for the library system of San Francisco, that drew inspiration from the shape of a book. The final appearance of the building was completed after transitioning the project from a physical model to a computer model.
Working on the project was difficult, Jester said. She described frustrations in moving from physical modeling to computer modeling.
“I had this bitter feeling toward the digital process, and I really just have a raw way of working, drawing by hand and being really messy and painting so digital stuff didn’t really work into that,” she said.
The digital transition can be challenging to new students but is still necessary, said architecture professor Thomas Fowler, who taught Jester’s class.
“There is a very different creative process that happens when you’re using your hands to make drawings and even paintings,” Fowler said. “Once you have to translate that to a different media, the jump sometimes is very difficult. It’s like going from pen and paper to a computer in terms of keyboarding something.”
Regardless of her struggles, Fowler said he was impressed with Jester’s project even in the beginning stages.
“She was always willing to try different things with her project, and she’s very good at taking criticism and coming up with alternative options for her project,” he said. “She has the right attitude, she’s very, what I call agile, and able to adjust to whatever the direction that’s needed to get something done.”
The winning of this national award was new ground, even for a reputable architecture program such as Cal Poly’s.
“In all my years of sending entries in, I’ve never had a student get the top honor. I’ve had them get honorable mentions,” Fowler said. “(Her project) was so well thought out and also so well connected to her vision about reading, and that’s what I want students to do. I want them to get a lot of themselves into these projects, and once they get to the actual building design, the transition is a lot easier.”
Because she won the top prize, Jester won free software for herself as well as for students in the architecture department. On top of that, she was flown to Chicago to receive the award.
“I was mostly stoked just to go to Chicago,” she said. “I mean, wining an award is cool, but they flew me to Chicago, and that’s way cooler.”