A team of seniors from El Dorado High School’s Aztec Architecture Academy emerged victorious for the third year in a row after winning first place in the Texas Society of Architects 2023 Student Design Challenge.
The competition required participants to create innovative design solutions based on the theme "Emerge: Evolution through Design" for sheltering individuals and communities affected by environmental, cultural, or political disasters.
The winning team - Idali Ramirez, Andrea Rodriguez, Joanna Rubio, Miranda Serrano, and Jonas Zamora - designed a flood-resilient building to help people displaced by floods in Brazil, which have worsened due to climate change.
“The floods happen every year in Brazil, and we wanted to create a structure where families and friends could meet up and have a place to stay while they reconstructed because some of the areas were affected badly, and they were homeless,” Rubio said.
The team conducted extensive research on Brazil’s environment, culture, and architecture to create a presentation, including drawings, floor plans, and the construction system used to build the roof, walls, and floor. Their design followed Brazil’s architectural style.
To ensure the building would be resistant to flooding, the team used a special stucco that was resilient to water. They also lifted the building 18 feet from the ground using special columns and included a flood prevention wall that would retain the floodwater for powering the building.
“I really liked the idea behind it, like evolution through design,” said Ramirez, who plans to study civil engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso this fall. “It was quite an interesting topic, the idea of how humans evolve through change and how that can also be applied to architecture.”
The Aztec Architectural Academy, the only one of its kind in the El Paso region, is a rigorous, hands-on program that allows students to gain a foundation in the fields of interior design, construction, civil engineering, and architecture.
Luisa Valenzuela, Aztec Architecture Academy instructor, said the annual student design challenge allows the academy’s students to sharpen their skills and experience what it would be like to present their work at an industry level.
“It’s a very good experience for them,” Valenzuela said. “We have architects coming to the school that actually grade their project. They come and see their work and give constructive criticism so they can improve and that helps them a lot so they can be at an industry level, not at a high school level.”
The students were recognized at the 84th Annual Conference and Design Expo in November in Fort Worth, Texas.
This was the third time Zamora participated in the competition, and he noticed a significant improvement in his skills each year. He attributed the success of his team to their collaborative work on the project.
“We had somebody doing the actual floor plans; somebody would be concept, somebody who would do a roof, and someone who is doing the overall theming of our building, so it was a pretty even workload, and that made the building come to life as a collaborative piece of work,” Zamora said.
Miranda Serrano said the key to winning the competition was that the team considered not only the building’s functionality, but also the needs of its residents.
“We thought it through, and we did a lot of research on it, and everything was planned to detail, and I think that's what helped a lot,” said Serrano, who plans to obtain an associate degree in architecture from El Paso Community College after graduating high school and then transferring to Texas Tech University’s architecture program.
For Andrea Rodriguez, who hopes to study architecture at the University of Arizona this fall, the contest was an opportunity for her to travel to Fort Worth, showcase her skills and network with professional architects. She said the Aztec Architecture Academy and all the opportunities that it offers has prepared her well for college. “I feel like learning what architecture is now will help me persevere into continuing my architecture school and not let the hard times catch me,” Rodriguez said.