For the past two years, Cal Poly Pomona won second place in the Julius Shulman Emerging Talent Award design charette, but this year, we received first place.

Overall rendering of the project within the South Los Angeles Wetlands Park

Hosted by the Los Angeles Business Council, the competition typically took place over a weekend within the Gensler LA office, but the format changed to a two-week event, which required students to work in remote locations. Architecture schools within the greater Los Angeles area were invited to participate. This year teams of 2-3 students from Cal Poly Pomona, USC, SCI-Arc, Woodbury, Otis, and Long Beach State competed against each other.

Ryan Spruston, AIA of Gensler talks to the six student teams about the presentation process. While students worked in various locations, each team explained their project to a panel of jurors in the Gensler LA office.

The change in format made things difficult for Kate Bilyk, Jeffrey Stevens, and I because the two weeks coincided with the beginning of our senior project schedule, which started in January. On top of that, I was participating in Blank Space's Fairy Tale Competition, whose deadline was the same as that of the Shulman competition. 

Jeff, Kate, and I working in studio

Kate, Jeff, and I did not sleep the night before the entry was due, so we spent the long, grueling night in studio, fueled by coffee and pizza, rendering and Rhino-ing on five different computers. (In addition to each of our laptops, Jeff and I brought in our desktops to render, while we worked on line drawings.) At 9 a.m. professors and more students began to filter into the building, but we warded them off, and threatened them with our awful coffee breath, since our deadline was at noon. After three diagrams, two renderings, two plans, four elevations, and 11 sections, we turned in our work at 11:40 a.m. 

The LA Architectural Awards Ceremony

Last Thursday, June 18 at the Los Angeles Architectural Awards Ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, the LA Business Council finally announced that our team won the competition. About 40 established firms also celebrated wins that day, and a handful out of the 200 or so people there approached my team and I to congratulate us. After this and the countless celebratory chain of emails from Cal Poly faculty (and even Raymond Neutra), Kate, Jeff, and I were surprised about how many good wishes we received. We must have underestimated the importance of our win and the competition, but we are undoubtedly glad that we broke Cal Poly Pomona's second place streak in the Julius Shulman Emerging Talent Award.

One of seven cross sections into the building

Click HERE to see the rest of the competition entry.