MSU students (l-r) Eric Abrams, Marissa Hatcher and Shawn Ronning's designing ways helped MSU sweep a national student design contest. Not shown are Shannon Peterson and Maisie Sulser. MSU photo by Jean Arthur.

Most of the students in Montana State University School of Architecture design classes had never been to Palm Desert, Calif., much less experienced the scorching desert climate. However, five of them designed buildings for a desert community college that were of such grace and substance that their designs swept a prestigious international student architecture competition.

Students Eric Abrams of Missoula, Shawn Ronning and Marissa Hatcher of Spokane, Wash., Shannon Peterson of Circle and Maisie Sulser of Billings, all MSU architecture students, composed three of four top winning teams in the 2003-2004 Leading Edge Student Design Competition. The three teams bested 226 entries from 82 different colleges and universities throughout the world, resulting in $7,000 in prize money for the five students and an additional $3,500 that will go to their school.

"I can safely say that this is the first year there's been such a near sweep of the awards by just one school, so its definitely something to be proud of," said Pat Heatherly of the New Buildings Institute, sponsor of the Leading Edge design contest.

"So many winners (from MSU) in a competition of this magnitude in terms of the number of entries illustrates the depth of teaching throughout our curriculum," said Ralph Johnson, interim head of the School of Architecture. Johnson said the school would put its $3,500 portion of the awards in a fund that support future competition entries and expenses. "Every one of these awards represents contributions from virtually every faculty member we have."

"The winning entries showed innovative design strategies, strong technical analysis and aesthetics that worked with the campus and environment," according to a critique by Vivian Loftness, a judge in the competition and professor of architecture at Carnegie Mellon University.

The team composed of Sulser and Peterson, both fourth year students, won the top prize of $3,000 in the advanced level of the competition. The top level required the design of a hypothetical administration building on the College of the Desert campus in Palm Desert. Contest judges praised their massing of small, stadium-like classrooms massed on the north side of the building, their new idea for a double wall filled with sand excavated from the site as well as their landscaped, roof and solar panels, all ideas to we employed to buffer heat gain from the building's hot southern desert sun. The judges also liked the team's design boards, which featured hand-rendered sketches overlaid on a pleasing, textured background created by scanning actual palm fronds and grass.

Peterson and Sulser, best friends and roommates, are both currently in Europe with an MSU architectural class and e-mailed that they plan to use their $3,000 in prize money to help fund their European tour.

"I figure that is as the best way to use it anyway, as a reward for the hard work last semester and this summer to get here," Sulser wrote from Berlin.

A second MSU team composed of Abrams and Ronning, both fourth-year students, placed second in the advanced design competition. The duo will split $2,000 in prize money, which particularly comes in handy for Ronning, 32, the father of three. Ronning, who came to the MSU School of Architecture after working as an architectural tech for a local firm, and Abrams, who transferred to MSU from the University of Montana to attend the School of Architecture, are also business partners in a small, local construction firm.

The judges said they liked the aesthetics of Ronning and Abrams' design as well as many of the sustainable innovations, including 2-ft.-thick concrete walls with a polystyrene core and a plan so energy efficient that air conditioning would not be required. Abrams credited the MSU professors in preparing the students for the contest, particularly Daniel Glenn, who was the teacher in the design studio in which the two MSU winners Design Level I participated. " I wish to express the importance of his role in our success in this competition," Abrams said. The four sat next to each other and Abrams and Ronning said proximity also helped them work for excellence.

"We spent a lot of time studying the climate and developed 10 strategies and a set of design principals that we stuck with all the way throughout our design," Ronning said.

Hatcher, a third-year student from Spokane, was second in Design Challenge, the first level of the competition, also winning $2,000 for her winning design of a 4,000 sq. ft. daycare facility on the College of the Desert campus. A design team from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, won first place in that level. Hatcher's design studio professor was Tammy Minge.

Hatcher's playful design featured such innovations as windows on children's eye-level, concrete, sustainable walls composed of fly ash, sliding doors that makes the space flexible, and scuppers that "celebrate the rain, a valuable resource in the desert."

Hatcher transferred to MSU from Carroll College after testing out the architecture program by taking first year design in the summer. She "fell in love with architecture and Bozeman."

"The Leading Edge Design Competition was inspiring because it was to be a sustainable design and sustainable architecture is definitely the thing of the future," she said.

An additional six MSU students also received merit awards and commendations in the contest. Those students are: Brian Brush, Dusty Eaton, Nick Pancheau, Dallas Huard, Kenneth Hintze and Paige Johnson.

For more information about the Leading Edge Design Competition, go to: The Leading Edge Design Competition Web site.

Written by Carol Schmidt and posted 9/29/04.