Architectural engineering student team wins top prize at AEI international competition

A team of University of Nebraska-Lincoln architectural engineering students took the top prize again at the 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers' (ASCE) Architectural Engineering Institute (AEI) International Student Design Competition on April 9.

Team Artemis, made up of students in The Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction, won in the Building Integration category for the overall design and also received first place in Mechanical Systems.

Additionally, the Nebraska students took two awards for Outstanding Achievement in Innovation – one for Building Performance and one for Water Retention, Harvesting & Re-Utilization.

The team members, who took Clarence Waters' Team Design AE 8030/8040 course, are:

Mechanical Team – Ashley Everitt, Jennifer Mack and Mitchael Sieh.

Electrical Team – Gage Gibney (Team Leader), Aaron Adams, Allie Huffman, Matt Huntwork, and Andrew Martinez.

Structural Team – Raiyan Al Hashmi and James Andrus.

Teams were tasked with designing a new school building for Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C. to consolidate its lower/middle school and high school campuses into a single campus. The structure includes a gymnasium, classrooms, teaching pods, a 35,000-square foot parking facility, a 500-seat black box theater, and a synthetic turf playing field on the roof.

Each year, the AEI International Student Design Competition attracts top architectural engineering undergraduate and graduate students from leading academic institutions nationwide/worldwide. The annual competition provides a unique venue for students to showcase their architectural engineering knowledge and skills by encouraging collaboration, research, innovation, and peer review by practitioners.

This year's conference and competition awards ceremony were held virtually due to CDC pandemic guidelines, though they are typically held in-person.