E-Studio

Winning competitions affirms that our program and department are preparing students to excel in their future endeavors. This year’s EStudio found three teams of graduate and undergraduate students who swept the awards at the Utah Real Estate Challenge. The students, teamed with business students from the Huntsman and Eccles Schools (USU and University of Utah) presented before an audience of 400 bankers, investors, and designers taking first, second, and third prizes totaling thirty-five thousand dollars. Our teams were mentored by Kurt Altvater (BLA 1981), and Senior Vice President at CBRE San Francisco. In four weeks’ time the students submit a five-page conceptual design and pro-forma to move to the money round. With an additional four weeks, they and their business partners prepare and present a twentyfive-page proposal with site and architectural plans and a full project proforma.

Our students bring their collaborative skills and studio culture to the table in order to design and format the proposals at each stage of the event. They learn so much about speed in the process and working with mentors to design sites and buildings with clear value propositions, design goals, and physical outcomes. The sense of accomplishment from this competition and the EStudio class is intended to stimulate a deeper dive into the design process with the aim of practice-level performance. We are so proud of this year’s teams:

First Prize ($20,000) Annika

Tingey and RaeLee Yancy

Second Prize ($10,000) Braya

Robbins and Caitee Frost

Third Prize ($5,000) Addison

Martin and Alaina Prase

In addition to these teams the class has four other individual students competing in separate submittals for other competitions. These include Randy Smith competing to “Repurpose Sea- platform Oil Rigs”, Lilian Taft embracing “Tactical Urbanism in Downtown Logan”, Michaela Clinger taking on” Floating Cities in Indonesia”, and Landon Puffer investigating “Technology in Playscapes”. Each of these designers have sought out professional mentors to identify their value propositions and bring these into program and form.

The EStudio class is taught by Todd Johnson and Caroline Lavoie and supported by LAEP’s dedicated faculty.