The School of Architecture and Design announced yesterday the winners of a competition to design a house for Habitat for Humanity.
Six teams of fifth-year students competed, said Tom Sofranko, interim director of the School of Architecture. The winning design will be built by students and Habitat for Humanity.
Erica Royalty, John Stoker, Taylor Batey and Brian Austin Waits were members of the two winning teams. The two teams received $2,000 each, and the other four teams received $500 each.
The design will be used to build a home on Yazoo Street, located between College Drive and Acadian Thruway, for Sarah Smith. Smith said she applied for a home through Habitat for Humanity in April 2004 and has been working with the organization since November.
She said she and her three children are excited about receiving their new home. Smith and her 15-year-old son have put in more than 350 hours of service to qualify for the new home.
Smith said she loved all of the designs.
“There is something in each house I could put together and make my own,” she said. “They all did a wonderful job.”
The competition was sponsored by The Vinyl Institute, a trade organization based in Arlington, Va., that represents United States PVC resin manufactures, most of which are located in Louisiana. The Institute provided the $6,000 in prize money that went to the winners.
Tim Burns, president of the Vinyl Institute, said the company has been working with Habitat for Humanity in Louisiana for the past five years. In conjunction with the organization, the institute has funded the construction costs of 24 new homes totaling over $1 million.
“We wanted to do something special for our last year to bring Habitat, the University and the community together,” he said.
Burns said The Vinyl Institute worked with Habitat for Humanity to develop the criteria for a design.
Judith Nordgren, director of industry affairs for The Vinyl Institute, helped organize the competition.
She said the chosen judges were all prestigious architects. They were Norman Kuntz, vice president and CEO of the American Institute of Architects and University alumni; Steve Dumez New Orleans architect and past state president of the AIA; Skipper Post Baton Rouge architect and past national president of AIA; Roy Decker Jackson, Mississippi architect and faculty member at Mississippi State University; and Terry Hill, president of Womack Construction.
Hunter Brown, an architecture student in the competition, said the class had been working on the projects for the past three weeks, and that it was time consuming.
He said he was excited about the outcome, and that construction on the house will begin the weekend of April 16.
“Not many architecture students get to build their projects and see it come through,” he said.
Stoker, who was on the winning team, said “It’s always good to be appreciated for your hard work.”