Contact: Maridith Geuder
A classroom assignment completed by Mississippi State University architecture students is earning much more than a passing grade.
Four third-year students are receiving national recognition and cash prizes for projects they completed under the supervision of associate professor Jane B. Greenwood.
Among the group, the team of Aaron Gentry of Aiken, S.C., and Matt Lam of Jackson, Tenn., won one of three top prizes and $1,000 in the 1998 Vital Signs Case Study Competition, a national contest sponsored by the University of California, Berkeley. The prize also earns the School of Architecture $500.
The students are enrolled in Greenwood's class on active building systems. Their project analyzed how a dogtrot house in French Camp provides an effective response to the hot, humid climate in the state.
Fellow students J.D. Balzli of Vancleave and Kyle Wagner of Olive Branch received one of three honorable mentions for their study of a Columbus industry. Their project evaluated how fiberglass skylights in the industrial building housing Allied Enterprises help conserve energy.
Wagner also was one member of a team that placed third in the competition last year.
"All of the students in the class were required to participate in the competition," said Greenwood. Eighteen MSU teams entered the event, which pits architecture students at schools around the country in a contest geared toward encouraging the design of environmentally responsible buildings.
Greenwood said that entering the contest required that her students "first learn how to experience or make valid observations, and secondly, how to use measurement equipment to gather quantitative information."
Because of the school's success in earlier competition, students this year had access to nearly $25,000 worth of equipment on loan for a year to Mississippi State. They also devised innovative ways to compare qualitative and quantitative information.
Using their collective imaginations, the students built devices to observe patterns of airflow. They then compared their observations with measurements gathered from hand-held anemometers and similar measuring devices.
Gentry and Lam studied the dogtrot house, which traditionally involve two wooden structures connected by a roof to provide a central breezeway porch.
"It was our intention to show that energy efficiency can be both analyzed and accomplished without technical means," Gentry said. Lam added: "I have learned to appreciate much more about vernacular architecture in the South."
Studying a particular building provided the students with countless opportunities to see design in practice.
"Periodicals and newspapers are excellent sources of information about new materials and methods for improving building design, but the best way to learn about architecture is to study buildings directly," said Kyle Wagner.
Like his teammate, J.D. Balzli said that the project taught him the ways that architecture can respond to people's needs. "Our project, in particular, demonstrates one way in which an industrial building in Mississippi can conserve energy, thus saving money as well as natural resources."
Greenwood said all of the students gained valuable experience for future designs.
"By comparing experiential observations to quantitative data, students develop confidence in their ability to understand how building form, space and materials can be more environmentally responsible."