Jim Staskal has given students the chance to participate in the state society of The American Institute of Architects (AIA) design contest for a number of years, but that changed this year.
Staskal split his architectural drafting class into three teams and made the contest the semester's primary task. And one of those three teams took third place in the quest to see who could design the best sustainable school.
The contest provides students with great learning avenues, the teacher said.
"It's an excellent opportunity for students to work with architects," Staskal said.
"We were very fortunate to have architects from Marshall Erdman come out," he said.
The architects or soon-to-be architects came out to the school typically for a couple hours a week to provide feedback and help on the students' designs, Staskal said.
The Waunakee crew of Tyler Burkholder, Alex Dorn, John Lowell, Mike North and Luke Pandow that took third place selected a site in the Town of Westport near the town administration building and athletic fields to locate their sustainable school after looking around town and scoping things out on Google Earth.
Mike North, who just finished his junior year, said the group looked to that area because it would not require a lot of grading, had natural drainage already and would require minimal additional athletic fields with the soccer fields and tennis courts already in place. The nearby pond, which could be used for geothermal heating and cooling, also was a big positive for the site, North said.
The architects from Erdman were great in getting the projects off the ground by helping educate the students on what makes a building sustainable, he said.
The group then began looking around the country at models and settled on the Pentagon as a model of sustainability, North said, primarily because of the ability to add on to the existing structure.
A tour of Erdman's Middleton facility also was a big bonus, both North and Staskal agreed.
The students were able to see firsthand how Erdman used sustainable design in the construction of its own facility.
"When they walked through and toured it, that was an excellent example for them," Staskal said.
The five students worked together well, North said, because they all had different strengths and brought different ideas and skills to the project.
As the project manager, he made sure everyone was on task, cleaned up loose ends and communicated with Staskal.
The plan started to come together and that is when the help of Erdman's architects became critical, North said. The architects looked at the students' plans, found areas of concern, and gave them ideas to make the plans better.
"It just kind of snowballed," North said.
Early on the group didn't much expect to win anything, he said, but going into the contest North thought they had put together a solid project.
But at the late May AIA state convention at Monona Terrace, a panel of architects selected the boys' project as the third best of 14 entries.
Other entries far surpassed the Waunakee students' design, North said, but the students overcame a lack of experience with Auto Cad and made sure to meet all the requirements of the contest.
Staskal said the strong presentation of the design and their focus on addressing sustainability carried them to the third-place finish.
The class wasn't exactly what he expected going in, North said, but at the end he still learned Auto Cad like he wanted, albeit self-taught to a degree. However, he also learned leadership skills, how to work with peers, the basics of architecture and design, and it was great to get input from those out working in the field, North said.
