This will be AIA Dayton’s 40th year of the Art in Architecture Student Design Competition. The annual competition is an extra-curricular activity that introduces high school students to architecture by participation in a design project. I’ve been involved with this committee since 2014, and in those years, the students have designed an urban outfitters along the river, a grocery store renovation downtown, an art gallery with residences above, an outdoor concert venue (inspired by the Levitt Pavilion), a hostel along the future Flight Line, a tiny house, a platform for peace in the Oregon District, and now a farm-to-table restaurant adjacent to the Gem City Market. Any high schoolers in the area are welcome to participate! The projects start every January. Check out AIA Dayton’s website for more information: www.aia.org/dayton.
Sinclair hosts a camp each year for high school girls interested in STEM careers. WiSTEM (Women in STEM) is a weeklong program with a variety of topics. I led the architecture session, where students learned about the upcoming Gem City Market, sketched potential floor plans of a new eatery to go next door on the site, and then created physical models in pairs. They then inserted their models alongside the Gem City Market model for photos. Take a look at what they came up with in just two hours total!
As a volunteer with AIA Dayton and Sinclair, I planned and led the “architecture” session of the week-long camp geared towards middle schoolers in the area. In a very short amount of time, the students designed an eatery to be placed in the future development site of the Gem City Market. First they sketched a floor plan, and then they constructed a physical model in groups.
INSPIRING FUTURE DESIGNERS
Working with students is a passion of mine, and I love introducing young people to the world of architecture. Maybe some of them will go on to be architects themselves, maybe some will be engineers that work with architects, maybe some will be a client of an architect, and hopefully more will gain an appreciation of the field.
As an AmeriCorps volunteer with Homeport in Columbus, I created and led a summer architecture course for the students at Marsh Run Apartments. The students were tasked with designing and then building seating near their community playground.
