Home/PVAMU Race to Zero team wins prestigious Top Ten Students Design Award

PVAMU Race to Zero team wins prestigious Top Ten Students Design Award

It was announced on Earth Day (April 22) that the Prairie View A&M University School of Architecture Race to Zero team has won the prestigious American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment (COTE) Top Ten for Students Competition for their project, The Fly Flat.

The 2018-2019 COTE Top Ten for Students Competition: Innovation 2030 recognized ten design proposals that best-combined design excellence and environmental performance. The student team for the AIA Cote Top Ten submission included Kennia Lopez, Cynthia Suarez-Harris, and Ledell Thomas, working with Faculty Lead and Assistant Professor Shelly Pottorf. Additional team members for previous project development included students Kristen Clark, Aaron Farray, Shannen Martin, Noah Perkins, Shelby Skinner, Kaylah Wesley as well as Shannon Bryant, Woodshop Supervisor, and Design-Build Specialist, and April Ward, Assistant Professor.

The Fly Flat is a net zero infill housing vision that aims to achieve economic, social, and environmental resilience in Houstonā€™s low-income, minority neighborhoods. This project previously garnered international, state and local recognition winning the Grand Award in the U.S. Department of Energyā€™s Race to Zero Competition, a Texas Society of Architects Studio Design Award, and an AIA Houston/City of Houston Complete the Community Housing Award. In addition, the project has been presented by the student team and faculty lead Shelly Pottorf as the closing keynote at the North American Passive House Conference, the ASHRAE Annual Conference, the International Forum on Urbanism, and the Living Future unConference.

Given their long lifespan, new buildings must be designed to address solutions to climate change and to respond to its projected impacts, well into the second half of the 21st Century and beyond. As with the COTEĀ Top TenĀ award for built work by design professionals, COTEĀ Top TenĀ for Students allows designs to be characterized in terms of 10 measures ranging from Community toĀ WaterĀ to Wellness.

ABOUT THE COMPETITION
The American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (AIA COTE), in partnership with the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), challenges students, working individually or in teams, to submit projects that use a thoroughly integrated approach to architecture, natural systems, and technology to provide architectural solutions that protect and enhance the environment. The competition recognizes ten exceptional studio projects that seamlessly integrate adaptive, resilient, and strategies for moving towards carbon-neutral operation within their broader design concepts. The competition is open to students from ACSA Member Schools from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

Click for more COTE details.

2019-12-17T11:37:07-06:00May 11, 2019|Latest News, School of Architecture|