We introduced Kaitlin to you as a 2024 2024 David Lakamp Architect Scholarship Recipient. She is working on both her Master’s program and as an Architect at a local Michigan firm Colliers Engineering & Design. You can read more about her here.
Below, in her own words, Kaitlin shares her graduate project this summer :
As part of the Design Build Studio at Lawrence Technological University, graduate students spend the first 8 weeks of the summer semester designing a project and the final week constructing the project on campus. This year, the class was given the task of designing a pavilion to be used for professional and alumni gatherings on campus. Our build week project was to construct a full-scale portion of the overall pavilion.
As the design process began, each group was given a precedent as a starting point to form and aesthetic. As the 12 groups merged progressively through the semester, the many pavilion designs became 3. My group’s pavilion was made of curving pieces of rebar, and enclosed in shrink wrap.
It was very exciting to be involved on the construction side of a design project and think about the ways design happens after the drawings have been complete. This class also really pushed us to work collaboratively while being remote from one another, learn to quickly adapt to unexpected challenges during construction, and understand design from a contractor’s point of view rather than our accustomed-to architect’s point of view. I really enjoyed this class and the experience of build-week!
Here are some additional video and pictures from the project
Video credit: Lawrence Technological University
Photo credit: Steve Kroodsma
